


and now my heart stumbles on things i don't know

by mayleavestars



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, MOSTLY meteorstuck but actually it's the meteor trip eoa6 and a bit of postcanon, Meteorstuck, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Pale-Red Vacillation, Quadrant Confusion, Retcon Timeline, Unreliable Narrator, davekat and rosemary are there in a background capacity, fuck quadrants all my homies hate quadrants, gamzee is there in a vriskagram-compliant capacity, terezi pyrope: stupidest smart person alive, they will kiss but nobody can prove they didn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 70,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25466323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayleavestars/pseuds/mayleavestars
Summary: “So do you want me to be your brilliant battle strategist, or do you just want someone to hang out with?”“Fuck, Pyrope, can’t I want both?”>Vriska and Terezi: Attempt rare and highly dangerous 3x SHOWDOWN COMBO with the MORTIFYING ORDEAL OF BEING KNOWN.Or: "Terezi, we live in a society." "Vriska, we literally don't." Or: in three years' worth of feelings jams, can they jam out the Most Important Feeling Of All? Or: in which a moirallegiance improves two trolls’ lives in the short term while obfuscating their complex feelings for each other, clowns are hunted, battle plans are discussed, dream bubbles are explored, and healthy approaches to one’s own vulnerability are flirted with but ultimately avoided.Or: longform meteor fic, but make it vrisrezi
Relationships: Terezi Pyrope & Vriska Serket, Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket
Comments: 158
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then the voice in my head said:
> 
> WHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE  
> OR LIVE IN CEASELESS DIVIDED REVOLT AGAINST IT  
> WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE
> 
> \- Troll Frank Bidart

Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and you are trying your best. You __are_. _

There is a meteor hurtling through the vast empty space of the Furthest Ring, propelled by the efforts of two of your twice-killed, apparently-alive, newly-vanished friends. And you are sitting in a dark room on this meteor of seemingly infinite dark rooms, holding a scarlet scarf in your hands.

You are the Seer of Mind, and you remember the last time you used your powers (two weeks ago), as clearly as if it were yesterday. At last week’s strategy meeting, Vriska had said, “Terezi, I bet you could use your mind powers to figure out more about the other timeline!” 

Logically, what she had said makes sense. You’d thought at the time that _obviously_ you’d be able to reverse-engineer whatever had gone wrong from the instructions your other self had written. Your realm had once been - and still is, allegedly - choices and their consequences, the unfolding of events as tied not to the abstract, infinitely possible twists of fortune and fate but to how people think and the choices they make. 

Sweeps ago, you would have cackled at the simplicity of these predictions. Other people’s minds, their failures, their fallibilities, had made sense to you; this had been the thing that had impressed Vriska about you in the first place. You had not thought about Seer powers too much during the game; your old tricks, your innate awareness of choices and their trajectories, and the curvy licorice guidance that manifested loudly in your head had worked just as well. 

No, your test as a Seer of Mind had been on the precipice of the most important coin flip you thought you’d ever make, even knowing that the outcome did not matter in the slightest. You had Seen the glowing blue shapes appear in your mind’s eye, seen red blood mingled with teal, seen the consequences of whatever wrigglerish softhearted impulse had tempted you to let Vriska go.

It was that, in the end, that had given you enough strength to lift your blade. Not Tavros, and not Jack, and no lies or revenge cycles, not any number of things that had happened in a world that no longer belonged to you. Only your confidence that you were the Seer of Mind, and that bringing Vriska to justice meant preserving the timeline; that her death was sanctioned by paradox space itself, and that _you_ were paradox space’s legislacerator.

 _Just overdue justice, just dispatching a criminal,_ you’d thought. Your face was placid; your hand was steady. Still, you wished closing your eyes as you did it could have had any effect; found yourself entertaining the possibility that her death would not be Just. (A stupid possibility – it would be the definition of Just, you knew this better than you'd ever known anything.)

That was when you’d heard the shout behind you, smelled the sudden flash of bright blue.

That was when you’d learned that, the one time you actually used your Seer powers, it had been to fuck everything up. 

-

Days in the past (but not too many), the first thing Vriska says when she comes to is a groggy but concise “What the fuck happened?” 

You don’t know how to explain any of this to her, so instead you put a hand on her shoulder and another on the small of her back to steady her as she sits up. You feel her turn to face you, and you’re suddenly, acutely aware of the uncertainty you smell on her, muddling her clean, sharp scent (like a polished blade, or wind from the sea, layered over with the bright lemon-orange of her god tier robes).

It is then that you realize you have not touched her this gently in a very, very long time. 

“Terezi,” she says, and this time it’s not quite a question. Her voice is still soft, and a sudden part of you wants to keep her like this, focused on you, not borderline blackflirting or dissembling wildly or throwing _the old times_ in your face. You don’t want to tell her what you’re piecing together of current events. You don’t want to tell anyone about anything. What you want to do, _stupidly_ , is pull her closer and thank paradox space, or bullshit timeline powers, or your alternate future self for freeing you from killing her. 

(You can imagine all too well, had been anticipating, the blueberry tinge of her spilled blood, her soft gasp as the sword entered her body - you would have been mercifully quick, so there would have been no last words, only a choked cough, only the thump of her body against the dark floor –)

You want to laugh hysterically, because it turns out nothing you believed in meant what you thought it did, or anything at all - not your aspect and not the alpha timeline and not your pretense that you didn’t feel anything for Vriska and maybe not even justice itself. You can _feel_ your mind churning with the need for answers, with the desire to get that stupid scarf away from Karkat, but right now you want to freeze yourself in time, keep this brief, forbidden contact with her, before everything starts moving again, before you have to explain - 

“ _Terezi_ ,” Vriska says again, and this time there’s some clarity returning, and a familiar whiny undertone in her voice. You wonder if she’ll yell at you for trying to kill her, or get right to the satisfaction of learning that this was the wrong choice. “What was that? You were about to kill me, right?” 

The moment ends. She’s sitting upright now, and you make yourself take your hand off of her shoulder. “Yes,” you say, and as much as you want to sound like yourself, you think you can’t quite manage it. “You - if you’d fought Jack - he would have been too pragmatic to take it up right away. He’d have followed –” 

“– my trail to the meteor, yeahhhhhhhh, you explained it the first time,” says Vriska, and, yeah, there she is. Never left. (You’re not smiling, you are _not_ smiling. The world has broken apart and you are not smiling.) Then she pauses. “I guess you were serious about it if you really were going to kill me. Gotta say, I thought you were bluffing. I’m impressed!” 

She punches you in the shoulder lightly, and you hear a smug smile in her voice. You want to punch her back for real, because you’re trying to have a Moment about morality and justice and duty and all _she_ can do is compliment you for trying to murder her. 

“But what the fuck was John doing there?” she asks, and you resign yourself to explaining, because, right, there’s four other trolls on this meteor and you can _feel_ them all staring at the two of you, even the prone form of Gamzee.

You stand up and, instinctively, give her a hand. “My dear friends!” you say, and good, your voice hasn’t lost the ability to sound like you know what the hell you’re talking about. That’s just your thinkpan. “Apologies for the confusion! We’ve got timeline bullshit on our hands.” 

-

Back in the lab, you lift up the scarf. The familiar teal of your own blood, mingled with cherry-red. It smells like your Redglare costume, and – not for the first time since it’s entered your possession – the familiarity makes you feel just a little sick. Your hands skim down its length, holding the scarf as close to your face as you can (licking your own alt-universe blood might be where you draw the line), stopping on an instruction at random. 

_WR1T3 ON TH3 W4LL: YOU DON’T N33D H1M._

You let your mind drift back to that conversation with Karkat. Whether you needed him had not crossed your mind; rather, you had felt warm with the knowledge not that he’d needed _you_. For all of Karkat’s bluster about leadership, he had trusted your insight implicitly. Mattering to someone again – you hadn’t thought at the time about how much you’d been leaning on it. Well, not until the tinge of weird, confused panic that had happened when you’d read _you don’t need him_ in unfamiliar blueberry handwriting (written in your own chalk, even though you were positive it was sitting untouched in your sylladex). 

So what had happened in the other universe? It would be easy to begin with Karkat. Sure, once you’d stopped trying to keep up with his flailing vacillations, you had felt a weight lift off your shoulders; sure, remembering _you don’t need him_ every time he’d lashed out too far at you had sent a little jolt of confidence through you. Sure, when you’d killed the other Dave, and he’d vanished from your Trollian notifications in justified anger, you had felt a little less hopeless when you remembered that message. 

But how could seeing Karkat have helped doom a timeline? And what the _fuck_ was up with the scalemates? And as for only fixing your mistakes - you think you understand why you did it, you think you do, but – well.

-

Days in the past (the same amount), you find yourself cursing the fact that, on this meteor, there is never a moment to _breathe_. 

You had barely just internalized the apparently permanent explosion of Aradia, and then deaths of Feferi, Equius, Eridan, and Nepeta; you had steeled yourself to murder your childhood best friend, had been diverted into a successful bit of clown hunting, had been sent spinning out of the aforementioned murder plan by the revelation that it would somehow lead to your death. You had touched the shoulder of the girl you’d thought of as your sworn enemy, and realized you were glad you didn’t have to kill her anymore, were in fact apparently _banned_ from killing her. 

Now, you’ve snatched the scarf from Karkat (you feel the stiffness in his hands as he lets the scarf go, and you wonder if he saw _YOU DON’T N33D H1M_ , and if he knows what it means). You’ve barely started rushing through an explanation when a pinprick of sour apple up in the void leaves you jabbing your cane towards the sky, as well as grabbing Vriska’s arm again – which is, well, just embarrassing, but the drama of the moment seems to demand it. 

“The green sun,” says Karkat quietly. “I think the humans did it.” And yes, you suppose that the flare of green could be the aftermath of an enormous explosion. 

The scent of acrid green light is flooding the surface of the meteor now. It smells to you like something unfamiliar, unpleasant, almost chemical. For some reason, you’re remembering the blank white surface of the cue ball Vriska had shown you a few weeks before you’d made your first attempt on her life. 

“We are meant to rendezvous with the humans at the site of the explosion, correct?” asks Kanaya; time is moving quickly, as if all of you are on the precipice of something you cannot fully understand. And then the surface of the meteor shakes beneath you, and the unsettling light is overwhelmed by the familiar blast of Sollux’s psionics. 

You want to tell him to stop, because he is meant for more than moving things through space, and he’s already died once. But you don’t. You stand by and move his arm with yours to give him a sense of where to propel you. You stand by, even when you smell golden blood, and somewhere in that race through the void, as the light of the Green Sun gets brighter, as the air gets hotter to the point of it being being hard to breathe, Vriska puts a hand over where you’re holding her and forcefully moves your hand down to take hers. 

You let her, because you may have just lost another friend, and because the world feels numb and unfriendly and all too large, too abstract. And _then_ you’ve arrived, and when your nose adjusts to all the fucking _green,_ there’s the fairy-winged Aradia you'd seen while passed out on the floor, and yet another Sollux (your pusher skips a beat in relief), and Dave (you’d broken off a conversation with him only a few hours ago, standing over Nepeta’s prone body –) and his sister, in orange-lemon robes that match Vriska’s. Also, the Green Sun, distinctly unexploded.

Only then does Vriska let go of your hand.

And then there’s a whole lot more to learn about than the scarf you’re holding in your hands, right down to the Green Sun, and the clusterfuck of interwoven sessions, and wherever Aradia and Sollux are going. It is not until the two of them move in tandem, and you see the humans flinch from the sound and spark of psionics, and the void around the meteor spins back into inexorable motion, that Lalonde calls an exposition meeting. 

“Do you mean a strategy meeting?” Vriska says loftily.

“Strategy requires exposition,” says Lalonde, apparently unfazed by her. “There is much that I understand now that I didn’t before.” The sheer drama of _that_ sentence apparently has Vriska beat for a moment. 

Light players. They're all the same, apparently.

You do not gather in the large computer lab, but rather in an adjacent room. You’re glad for this; the idea of facing the remnants of everyone who’s now gone, their stupid stashes and chests and last-sent messages, is too much to face head-on. Lalonde goes first, launching into explanations of suns and guardians and charts through the Furthest Ring. She fills the profile of a Seer better than you ever could have. All the same, you remember the first and last time you used those powers, and can’t begrudge her the superior position. 

“And then there’s Terezi’s timeline fuckery,” says Karkat, and all the attention in the room focuses on you. So you explain the best you can - go over the surprise Egbert cameo, and whatever the fuck retcon powers are, and a timeline where everything apparently went so badly that your last act was to write instructions to fix it. 

“It’s mainly small things,” you say. “Subtle changes. But –” (you know this information must be tactically valuable, that you must share it) “- the big thing, I guess, was that he stopped me from killing Vriska. Which, uh. I was about to do.” You smell the cherry blur that is Dave, and know he must wonder how different you seem, subdued and unsure and distinctly unfunny. You want to tell him that you hate it, and furthermore that you’re just as confused by it as he is.

There’s a long silence. You can _feel_ the question in the air, until – 

“Why Vriska?” Karkat asks at last, and, wow, that’s direct. 

“Woooooooow,” says Vriska, her voice just on the edge of hurt. She doesn’t hide it well, but you doubt anyone but yourself, and maybe Kanaya, is bothering to notice. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s not what I meant,” says Karkat quickly, though you know that, at least partially, it must have been. “All I mean is that - oh, joy, it brings the number of us alive and accounted for - not counting those of us, say, cavorting in paradox space with their miraculously resurrected dead time fairy robot girlfriends - from four to five! That’s still five dead trolls!” 

The room is quiet, his voice is full of hurt, and you don’t have an answer for him. Dave shifts towards his sister; whatever look he has thrown at her, you are sure it communicates something along the lines of _what the fuck happened here?_

“Not to mention the Matriorb,” Kanaya adds seriously, and, yeah, _there_ was something new to learn up on that roof. _Hi, Terezi, long time no smell, Eridan destroyed our race’s chances for propagation so I sliced him in half. Also, sorry about the bite marks, it won’t happen again._

There’s a cold pit somewhere in you, and it’s filled with an unfamiliar feeling: frustrated anger at your future self. Beside you, Vriska practically vibrates with tension, as if waiting for someone to tell her directly that she doesn’t deserve to be here. 

You search for answers and find one, and think it’s weak even as you’re saying it. “Aside from one thing - something about a ring, it must have happened further in the timeline - everything on this scarf concerns me directly. I think the other Terezi didn’t want to correct anyone’s mistakes but her own.” 

“Right,” Karkat snaps. “So your alternate future self had time to tell you to dump me, but not to save our friends or the future of our species. We’ll probably still go extinct, but at least we respected everyone’s agency, what a _fucking_ relief –” 

“Fuck you, she was dying!” Vriska says suddenly; she had stayed uncharacteristically quiet beside you for the entire time that the undercurrent in the room had trended towards murdered friends, but now she stands up before you can stop her. “And she wasn’t making this up as she went along, she used mind powers! And I can hear you not wanting me here, but fuck you, apparently I matter if we want to win, and I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll – I’ll fix what I messed up, I’ll fight Jack and whoever else myself if I have to, listen to Terezi this time ‘cause she’s fucking _smart_ , and - and I’ll find a way to get that orb back, too, Maryam, you see if I don’t -” 

Karkat stands up, too. “As much as I know that shutting up is basically fucking physically impossible for you, our friends are still dead, one of whom I'm pretty sure you killed –” 

“ _I_ _know!_ ” Vriska shouts, and the table shakes under her grip, and you can hear the strange but undeniable presence of regret in her voice, but you can hear something else, too. A newfound determination: _I’ll fix this. I am going to fix this_. And you don’t know how she can bring back the Matriorb, and Tavros is still dead, but she sounds convinced enough of her own capacity that you want to believe her anyway. 

That’s when everything clicks into place. Maybe you’ve never been that good at Seeing anyone else’s mind, not in a way that brings them anything but death and harm, but you know Vriska’s. The doomed Terezi did, too - she had remembered, you’re sure, long nights staying up to plan FLARP campaigns, the tenuous collaboration in your efforts to exile Jack, watching her explode into brilliant blue as she struck the final blow against the Black King. 

Give Vriska a reason to strive for something, and she will. Tell her she’ll save the session, and she’ll do everything in her power to do just that. Tell her she’s important, the _most_ important, and she will take it as the confirmation she needs, and let it carry her into impossible feats. 

You try and fail to bite back a smile. To set the sheer force of her on a path to do something _good_ \- well, you’re not any good at being a Seer of Mind, but you understand your other self’s plan a whole lot better. 

It doesn’t hurt that, sure, she’s being obnoxious, and Karkat is still glaring daggers at her, but even then, two hours in, imagining this new world without her is unfairly painful. 

After a long, long silence brought on by Vriska’s outburst, it’s Dave who speaks. “Karkat, I get that things got pretty fucked up here, but as the time guy, can I just - authoritatively tell you - that messing with timelines is _complicated_. Whatever rules this new magic had, future Terezi couldn’t have derailed every event there was. Too many variables there. Gives me a fucking headache. Actually, this whole thing gives me a headache, since it reeks of doomed timelines, but – John was here, apparently, and if a guy can't trust his best bro, who can he trust?” 

Dave does not say he trusts you. You remember his other self’s dead body, and you can’t say you blame him. 

He sits back, and, in what must be the most unexpected turn of events in the history of Paradox Space, you think Karkat nods. 

“Strider,” he says, “you’re still an asshole, but… but I guess that explanation makes some semblance of sense.” 

“Kanaya, I meant what I said earlier,” Rose says after a length of silence; her hand moves slightly across the table as if to lay itself on Kanaya’s arm, and then twitches to a stop midway through. “The paths of fortune are murky with regards to how we’ll get your matriorb back, but rest assured I would know if the path was hopeless. And it is not.” 

Kanaya actually leans forward. “Thank you, Rose,” she says warmly, and around then the meeting is drawn to a close. You turn to Vriska, and she gives you a genuine smile. Of course she’s pleased with you, you think, half-bitterness and half-longing and all-guilt. You’ve placed her at center stage. 

“For the record, I think your alternate future self must have been badass as fuck,” she says, and you don’t know if it’s meant as a dismissal of your non-alternate present self, but it feels like one. _Your role has ended, Terezi. You cleaned up your mistakes, and left all the others untouched. Apparently, that fixes a timeline. Let everyone else save the day, now._

\- 

In the dark empty room, two weeks out out from the strategy meeting, you lick your palmhusk and find Karkat’s apology, opened and ignored. 

**CG: HEY, TEREZI?** **  
** **CG: I’M SORRY.** **  
** **CG: WHATEVER YOUR ALTERNATE FUTURE SELF GOT UP TO, YOU’RE NOT HER AND I SHOULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN ANGRY AT YOU** **  
** **CG: AND I GUESS THINGS WERE PRETTY BAD IN THAT TIMELINE ANYWAY AND I’M SURE I CONTRIBUTED TO THAT SO MAYBE SHE’S FIXING ALL OUR MISTAKES IN A WAY WE CAN’T SEE** **  
** **CG: AND THAT’S PRETTY MUCH THE WORST BECAUSE FUCK, WE ALREADY HAVE TO CONTEND WITH DOOMED TIMELINES AND ASSHOLE FUTURE SELVES, AND NOW ASSHOLE FUTURE SELVES FROM DOOMED TIMELINES HAVE TO COME INTO THE PICTURE???** **  
** **CG: I GUESS I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU HAD TO AVOID ME FOR THE TIMELINE TO FUNCTION BUT I GUESS IT’S JUST ANOTHER COLOSSAL FUCKUP OF MINE I’LL HAVE TO LEARN TO ACCEPT. BUSINESS AS USUAL, HA FUCKING HA!** **  
** **CG: BUT SERIOUSLY, I’M SORRY.**

The scarf beside you lies still. Cherry and teal, like a legislacerator’s uniform. Justice to a timeline, but a confused and senseless kind of justice. You are scared that this is the only kind you have left. 

It’s been a week. You have to answer him eventually. 

**GC: K4RK4T 1T’S F1N3** **  
** **GC: YOU M4D3 SOM3 GOOD PO1NTS!** **  
** **GC: H4LF OUR FR13NDS H4D JUST D13D 4ND 1T W4S 4 F41R QU3ST1ON R3G4RDL3SS** **  
** **GC: SO NO H4RD F33L1NGS RE4LLY**

You wait, tempted to leave it at that, but a vague, half-forgotten sense of duty to be a halfway decent friend lingers in you. 

GC: 4BOUT TH4T M3SS4G3  
**GC: 1 DO NOT KNOW FOR SUR3 BUT 1 DOUBT 1T H4D 4NYTH1NG TO DO W1TH SOM3TH1NG YOU SP3C1F1C4LLY D1D WRONG  
** **GC: 1 H4V3 4 F33L1NG 1F W3'D C4RR13D ON 1T WOULD H4V3 SUCK3D FOR BOTH OF US  
**GC: SP33D1NG UP TH4T R34L1Z4T1ON PROB4BLY S4V3D US BOTH SOM3 TROUBL3****

Then you put down your palmhusk and turn it off. Before you can get back to broodingly sniffing at the grisly remnant of your alternate future self’s death, there’s the sound of the door opening and then of the light switch being flipped. 

“Hi, Vriska,” you say, without turning around. 

Instead of answering, she crosses the room in a few quick bounds - the God Tier robes are gone, replaced by the flannel and jeans she’d worn for most of your session - and swings up to sit next to you on the table with a loud thump. 

“There’s no use hiding from me,” she says cheerfully. “I can find which room you’re in, easy, every time. I have allllllll the luck, remember? That hasn’t stopped being a thing that’s true.”

“What if I wasn’t hiding?” 

“You’re hiding,” says Vriska, sounding inexplicably petulant. “We’ve barely talked outside meetings. I thought we weren’t going to let the past get in the way of things anymore. I mean, we’ve got a sweep and a half on this stupid rock, you can’t avoid me forever.” 

You probably should have considered that Vriska’s confused overtures toward you (rivalry? competition? murder partnership, sans murder?) would not have been deterred by something as trivial as your attempt to stab her in the back. You don't know how you feel about it, and so you remain silent.

“I don’t get it,” Vriska says after a moment. “Did you spare my life just so we can play Let’s Watch Vriska Serket Humiliate Herself?” (When she bites down on the last syllable of _humiliate_ , stretching it out a tad longer than necessary, you feel the corner of your mouth twitch up. Stupid childhood friends turned bitter enemies. Stupid illogical thinkpan, going haywire when they don’t die at your hands.) “Seriously, like, we can do it. Do you want me to start sending you dumb flattery in the middle of the day again?” 

You frown. A few times, following your break and preceding the game, you _had_ woken up to strings of rambly cerulean text. Never asking you to come back, but insulting and complimenting you in weird combinations, reminding you of old times with a glib directness that had infuriated you.

“That was flattery?” you say instead. “I thought it was taunting.” 

“This is why your blackrom game always blew,” says Vriska loftily. “Taunting should always involve a little flattery.” 

“Yes, I forgot about your deep and emotionally fulfilling kissmessitude with Eridan fucking Ampora. You are clearly an expert on the subject.” 

“Well,” Vriska says pointedly, “I doubt Mindfang would have bothered with Dualscar if Redglare wasn’t so fucking murder-happy,” and, wow, this is a horrible conversation, and also you doubt the historical accuracy of that statement, but Vriska had never bothered with historical accuracy, not really. Case in point: Mindfang and Redglare, partners in murder. 

“Please,” you say, “let’s not talk about Mindfang. Also, let’s not talk about Redglare. Also let’s especially not talk about Orphaner Dualscar, seriously, Vriska, we're not five.” 

She sighs. “I’m sorry. That was off-topic, anyway. I’m glad you’re not my kismesis, I don’t know why - I mean, I'd rather you hate me romantically than platonically, because platonically would fucking suck, but -” 

“I don’t,” you say quickly. “Really. If I hated you platonically, I’d have kicked you out of this room already.” _If I hated you romantically, I wouldn’t have tried to kill you_ , you think, but don’t say.

“Then why are you avoiding me?” she asks, sounding petulant again. 

“I’m not avoiding anyone.” You stop and think. If this was Dave, you’d have deflected him already with a mutually advantageous array of jokes; Rose, as far as you’re aware, would try her shitty mind games on you and be met with shitty mind games of your own. Karkat could be scared off, and Kanaya could be politely asked to leave. 

But Vriska - Vriska’s sticky and determined, like brushing spiderwebs out of your eyes, like shaking the scent of the Green Sun. Or maybe it’s that you _want_ to tell her what you’re feeling, that the boundary between your thoughts and words is suddenly dangerously thin. 

“At the next meeting,” you say at last, “I want to have something to show for myself. You and Rose are basically the only people talking at those meetings, right? So I’m trying to figure out what went wrong in the other timeline, and what some of these suggestions are meant to do.” You hold up the scarf. “Look at this shit. You know doomed Terezi made a point of telling me not to date Karkat? And then Egbert added later not to see Dave, either.”

“Well,” Vriska says, and she sounds pleased. “I saw them with that little Carapacian just yesterday. Building towers out of cans. Cute as anything.” 

You twist your mouth in unwilling curiosity because, okay, you hadn’t expected _that_. “Dave and Karkat? And they weren’t killing each other?” 

“I mean, they’re not best human bros or whatever, but they were in the same room with minimal yelling! Which proves my point. If you’d given one of them the time of day, they’d be competing over you. That’s half the team lost to stupid melodrama.” 

Vriska says this easily, taking for granted the idea that you are some kind of in-demand commodity. “Friendship, ruined. Can towers, unbuilt. Team unity, destrooooooooyed. That’s no good in a fight! And you fixed it before it was even an issue. Done, figured it out, who needs mind powers?

The last statement stings, even though it shouldn’t. _It’s Vriska_ , you think. It’s Vriska, it’s not worth it, what else would you expect from her – but you’ve been sitting in this room for hours now, and she’s come bounding in with her stupid _romance_ theories (who is she, Karkat?!) that are still better than anything you’ve thought of, because it’s like you _can’t_ think about it, it’s like you’ve outlived your usefulness before ever doing anything – 

Before you know what you’re saying, you’ve snapped, “I know! I know, all right?” 

You hear Vriska’s posture shift from casual confidence to something a little more uncertain. “What?” 

“Who needs mind powers,” you repeat. “I know nobody needs mind powers! I know we’ve got a - a 2x light aspect combo now,” (you suddenly miss Dave, whom you’ve barely spoken to, and you doubt he’s even noticed, because who wants to hang out with a troll who manipulated him to his death –) “and I know _I_ can’t do a fucking thing right, but you don’t have to rub it in –” 

She’s touching you. Her hands are on your shoulders; you smell the intensity rolling off of her in waves, the blue twist of her lips in an uncertain position you haven’t seen them in for years. “Terezi,” she says, and she has the gall to still sound _confused_. “Terezi, what the fuck, that’s not what I meant at all.” 

“The one time I used Seer of Mind powers, it was to fuck up the timeline!” you spit at her. “And also kill you, in case you’ve forgotten!” 

“And then you used Seer of Mind powers to unfuck it! And also unkill me! Just - I don’t know where you got the idea that I think you’re useless, but… Lalonde’s light shit is useful, and Maryam’s scary good with a chainsaw, but we’re still the coolest people on this rock by a long shot. Watching you - during the game, and before - we wouldn’t have won without you, and we won’t win without you this time.” She stops to let out a breath, and seems to realize how sincere she’d been. 

“I mean,” she adds lamely, “we need everyone we can get. Also, I’ve been hanging around Kanaya and her human and they’re insufferable, like actually unbearable, and also they keep ignoring me, so if you could quit brooding in rooms and leaving me _alone_ , it would be gr _eat_. Because if you put me in the position of having to suck up to the Carapacian, I swear –” 

You’re smiling again; not whatever fragile accidental thing she’s been bringing out in you, but a classic Unsettling Terezi Grin. “So do you want me to be your brilliant battle strategist, or do you just want someone to hang out with?” 

“Fuck, Pyrope, can’t I want both?” 

You were not expecting that answer; it sounds bizarrely honest. You’re not used to this Vriska. Last time you’d nearly killed her, the fallout had been radically different. 

You don’t know what to do about this fact, so you say something simpler. “Seriously, though. I don’t know if I can figure out exactly what happened in the other timeline. It bothers me just as much as it does you. But the Terezi who ever did anything useful with her powers wasn’t me. If I'm ever going to become her, it can’t be right now.” 

“Sure,” Vriska shrugs. “Hey, there’s another me who gave Jack Noir the fight of his fucking life, but that’s not me either. I’m sure we could become them, in either case. But fuck Game powers, Terezi, you never needed them.” Something in the way she says it reminds you of when you’d answered her messages on the first day of the Game: _Without even using any special powers! Wow._ Not envy, surely - you doubt that you have anything Vriska could properly envy - but something like admiration. 

You swallow. “Thanks, Vriska,” you say at last, which is not what you expected. Somehow, though, she is the only person that you can trust to compliment you right now. 

Vriska perks up immediately; it’s almost funny to watch. “So!” she says, and you can hear her smile again, inordinately wide. “Team Scourge, Terezi, but on a big rock and for _actual_ justice, no murder except for the planned murder of big demon dogs and the rest of Lalonde’s list of projected enemies. Come on. I was thinking we could draw up an index of what we know about all of them, weaknesses, strengths - we used to be great at that kind of thing -” 

She’s talking so fast, barely indulging in dramatic pauses or the desire to stretch out words for emphasis. You haven’t heard her sound this eager in ages, as if two friendly words from you meant _let’s pretend we’re four sweeps old again_. You could fight it, if you wanted to. But Vriska had a point: what was the point of bringing her back to life if you were going to rehash the same tired, miserable game of hatred and insults and midday screeds, half-cursing and half-wheedling. Isn’t it better this way? A sweep and a half out, you have a war to fight. And if your other self wanted to bring Vriska back, presumably the underlying message there extended to _get along with her_. 

You don’t know if you’re imagining any of those messages, of course, but interpreting it that way feels good. It feels good being around someone who _knows_ you, for all that it’s terrifying after this long, for all that she might not have bothered so much if the options weren’t so scarce. “Yes, Vriska,” you say with a long-suffering air that you know she knows isn’t serious at all. “Let’s go make some charts.” 

“Yes!!!!!!!!” she crows, and you can hear the eight shout poles. “I alchemized you some chalk and everything - look at you, all it took to revive Team Scourge was blowing up the world and nearly killing me!” She jumps down from the table with a thump and extends a hand to you. After a moment’s hesitation, you take it. 

“This,” she says proudly as she drags you out of the room, “is going to the best decision you are ever forced to make by a dying alternate-timeline version of yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> homestuck fandom i wrote in second person for you please consider my humble offering. find it in your hearts to accept a humble meteorstuck fanned fiction with no postmodern metacommentary and a title from a fucking mumford and sons song in 2020. (awake my soul, btw. a cliche vrisrezi song probably but that doesn't make it less real)
> 
> i have this written a few chapters in advance and am determined to update once a week or so!
> 
> if u wish, find me on tumblr at [chronotopes](https://chronotopes.tumblr.com) and on twitter at [chronotopics](https://twitter.com/chronotopics)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I was never even sure what I’d do on Alternia. I always thought I’d be some kind of badass admiral, but I’m guessing the humans aren’t hot on conquest.” She made a face. “They’re so soft, you know.” 
> 
> “Yes,” you had said. “Squeamish about murder.” 
> 
> “Couldn’t be us,” said Vriska. 
> 
> “Couldn’t be us,” you repeated, and you were lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for being stalked/followed, as this is prelude to The Gamzee Chapter :(

You shouldn’t be shocked by how easy it is to fall into the rhythm of spending hours of every day with Vriska. But something _did_ die up on that platform; not her, but whatever determination you had to see her as your enemy. She is herself, of course; self-aggrandizing, grandiose, deliberately and accidentally insulting by turns. But you catch traces of something different sometimes, something not softer (never softer) but kinder. The same Vriska who convinced you, in a dark room out of many dark rooms, that you don’t have to use your Aspect powers to have worth. 

Still, you nearly run into trouble at the fourth strategy meeting (one human month, half a perigee) when Vriska finds out Dave hasn’t used his time powers for anything other than tracking its passage since exiting the session. 

“Seriously?” she says. “I mean, I wasn’t watching you much during the session, but Terezi had you doing some impressive loops, from what she told me. What's the problem?” 

“Thanks for making that call, TZ,” Dave mumbles across from you, “I’m glad we’re all sharing things. Didn’t realize we were sharing things, but if we’re sharing things, we can share things. If you and Vriska are playing show and tell, you can show and tell the _fuck_ out of my shitty time powers. Really, you can pull them out of your pocket and pass the fuck out of them to some sticky kindergarteners, you don’t even need to ask first –” 

“Strider, shut up,” Vriska cuts in before he can get going, or before you can explain to him (as if you know how, as if it matters) that you’d only bragged about his time loops back in that lab, on a day that lasted forever and feels like sweeps ago. 

(She had never had a sense of subtlety in any area of her life, and that day was no different. Whenever she’d achieved something, she’d practically draped herself over you and stared at the walls of red text on your screen. “I just left my personal chump on his quest bed,” she’d said, going for languidly casual and missing the mark entirely. “I don’t know if you happened to smell some blue Breath pajamas later in the timeline, but that just so happens to be because of _me_. You know, I used to think Breath was a useless Aspect, but I'm having to reevaluate.” 

You’d cheerfully ignored her. “Didn’t see any on Strider, by the way,” she’d pressed. “Maybe he didn’t have the guts?” 

You’d tilted your head towards her with a placid expression.

“Did you need anything from me, Vriska?” you’d asked, and she’d furiously stomped off to the other end of the lab. 

Fifteen minutes over, you leaned toward Karkat and Sollux and said, “You know there’s forty Striders running around his delicious cherry lava planet right now? Tracking that many stable time loops, and _he’s_ not even a God Tier.” It’s not as if you had much of an indoor voice at the best of times; if it echoes around the lab, loud enough for Vriska to hear, so be it.

Karkat said, “Forty Striders? Isn’t one enough?”; Sollux said, “Stop using us to get back at Vriska.”

“ _Vrithka_ has nothing to do with anything,” you’d said, and grinned to yourself when you heard the smash of something being thrown at the wall from across the room.) 

The Vriska of the here and now, no less infuriating in her own way, fixes Dave with the fullness of her attention. “I’m not angry! Everyone needs time to get a hang of their God Tier powers. Well, not everyone, but you do, I guess. Hey, I’m sure you can flag down Megido in a dream bubble, she’s always around, she was great at that stuff even before she god tiered -” 

“I think Dave and Aradia approached their time powers pretty differently,” you interrupt. Dave had meticulously avoided doomed timelines - looking at his own dead selves had palpably unsettled him. (The lesson sits cold and undeniable somewhere near the center of your chest.) You don’t want to know what he’d think of Aradia’s approach to time powers during the Game. Even for you, the sounds of her robot bodies dying by the thousands had been a lot to handle. 

Karkat shudders, clearly thinking somewhere along the same lines. “I think I like Dave’s better,” he says. It’s the first thing that he’s said all meeting. 

“I think I fucking hate time travel,” says Dave, and Vriska opens her mouth to speak, but she’s interrupted by Rose. Up until then, she had been staring at the map in the center of the table with a focused, thoughtful expression. 

“Vriska,” she says at last, “has a point in that every asset we have is one worth examining. With that said, it is up to your agency and yours _alone_ how you choose to use your classpect power.” Her voice becomes cold when she says the word _alone_. In another world, you think, the two of you would make a _terrifying_ team.

Still, you hope today won’t devolve into a head-to-head Light Aspect fight. Those are never fun. Or: they’re a _little_ fun, but sometimes you wonder if they verge on pitch, and it makes you feel inordinately weird for someone who has just actively mocked a joke about a joke about Vriska blackflirting with you. At those times, you sniff towards Kanaya across the table, and there’s a tight line to her bearing as if she’s not sure how to feel about it either. 

So to divert Vriska’s attention when you're sure she’s about to argue, you say, “There’s also the fact that our sense of our assets - and the reconnaissance we have - could change considerably in the coming sweep and a half.” (At one point, you are sure, your determination to maintain terminology is going to start slipping. _Three human years_ is a neater number.) “It’s worth assessing them, right now, but coherent battle plans are useless until we know more.” 

“I know _that_ , Terezi,” Vriska says, sounding a bit impatient, but the conversation moves on from Dave’s powers; his shoulders relax, and he goes back to whatever he’s doodling. 

Rose asks Vriska to stay back at the end of the meeting, so she waves and cheerfully tells you she’ll meet you in your block as the rest of you file out. 

You don’t expect anyone to catch up with you – it has been weeks since anyone has bothered - but you hear heavy footsteps behind you and recognize their pattern before you can even smell who it is. “Hello, Karkat,” you say, spinning around, and he stops. His shoulders are hunched in, and he smells distinctly unhappy. 

“So, casual question,” he says, “nothing to do with me. What’s with the new _hi guys, here’s my best friend Vriska_ , act? Did your other self put you up to _this_ , too?” 

“Can we stop talking about my other self, Karkat?” you sigh. “Or at least can we assume that my other self had agendas other than giving me dating advice? Can we perhaps act on the stunning assumption that everything she changed was tactically important in a way that we do not, at the moment, fully understand? I know you don't trust any of your _asshole future selves_ , but unlike you, I trust my competence in any given timeline.”

(You don’t mention the scalemates. You have your theories about that, but they’re certainly too personal - and too silly-sounding - to share.) 

Karkat stands in stunned silence for a long moment. “Terezi, _don’t_ tell me you and Vriska are in a quadrant now -” 

“No!” you say quickly; too quickly, for the fact that it's not a lie. “I mean, which one would we even be, if we were -” 

“Do you want to be?” he asks, and you don’t know what to do with the question. 

You don’t want to be her kismesis - you had enough of flirting with that idea in the session, even if you can’t tell how much of that was in either of your heads. Based on what you know of her relationship with Kanaya (not much, aside from Karkat’s gossip) you doubt Vriska’s looking for a moirail or matesprit, let alone _you_. And the ashen quadrant - realistically, you know that if anyone has to auspisticise between Vriska and anyone else over the course of this trip, it’s going to have to be you. But with that said, you don’t relish the thought. 

Instead of just saying no, even having logically and carefully worked out that it wouldn’t be a lie, you say, “I don’t see how it’s any of your business.” 

“Because I care about you?” Karkat says incredulously. “I don’t know how you preemptively getting rid of me somehow translated to _Karkat Vantas is no longer allowed to give a shit about me_ , but sorry, I do anyway!” 

“It’s sweet of you to worry,” you say, with the cheerfully blatant insincerity that has always come naturally to you. “But I think I can take care of myself. In fact, I am currently in the active process of being taken care of by myself.” 

Karkat sighs. “Fine. Real question, though, Terezi, and it’s not going to be _how can you stand her_ even though I want it to be. How can you be here at all without wanting to go insane? How do you look at or, fuck, smell the walls in this place and not want to be anywhere else? How can you wake up in dream bubbles and face the people who died right _fucking_ here? Tell me, has Vriska seen a dead Tavros yet or are they all smart enough to avoid her like the plague?” 

Sleeping is a wild card these days, you have to admit. You like the dream bubbles, you think – their terrains can be new and gratifyingly multicolored, or comfortingly familiar. But they carry dangerous things sometimes, too. You don’t know about dead Tavroses, but you’ve found yourself dodging dead Daves on multiple occasions, afraid each time to meet the one you were directly responsible for.

Karkat’s hand gestures are getting erratic, his voice wobbly. You have never been good at dealing with him when he’s like this; you have never been good at being comforting. Hell, for all his faults, you have to admit that _he_ was probably a bit better at it than you. At least he bothered to understand people’s emotions without ever considering how he’d weaponize them. 

“And also,” he says, and he’s come closer, but not too close. Good. “How can you let her make you jump into preparing for the next horrible thing we all have to go through before we’ve even recovered from the last horrible thing? How can you not want to - just - bask in the boredom of it for a precious few perigees?” 

“That’s not how Vriska works,” you say with a frown. “And that’s her right. I can tell you and Strider hate the meetings! So take this as my official announcement that you don’t have to attend if you don't care about them. I’ll break it to Vriska if you're scared of her.” This is an unfair thing to say. A cruel thing, maybe. You say it anyway.

Karkat makes a disgusted noise. “So you _are_ pale for her,” he scoffs. “I hope you’re happy together. You’re going to, what, spend the next sweep of your life doing damage control for her? What the fuck do you get out of that arrangement?” 

You breathe in and out a few times. “Karkat,” you say at last, “have you considered the fact that I care about her? You’ve been my friend for a sweep now.” (You started talking to him regularly shortly before you and Vriska had cut ties for good. She’d interrogated you about him, trolled him a few times, decided he was not worth her time.) “Can you not tell that, maybe, half of us dying and me trying to kill her left me reevaluating what role I want her to play in my life?” You close your eyes, not because it does anything, but because at least it recreates the sensation of rest, and of calm, and you don’t know if you can say this next part. 

“There’s… as far as we know, right now, there’s eight living trolls left in the entire universe. The five of us on this meteor, and Sollux and Aradia, and her Imperious fucking Condescension, if we’re to trust what we're hearing. Because our lives can’t get bad enough. Compared to _her_ , well – can we consider that we have to believe the rest of us can change?” 

Change was not a consideration within the Alternian justice system. If you had to change, the Empire had no need to wait for you to do so. If you had to change, you were dead. If you had to change, you wouldn’t get the chance. 

You had cackled out the phrase, “No, Senator Lemonsnout, you certainly _won’t_ do it again,” a thousand times, your fingers clever around a noose, with a joy that leaves you sick to your stomach now. 

Karkat deflates a bit. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re right. It’s not like I haven’t been - hell, I think I was pale for Gamzee, might still be.” He looks into the distance. “You’re right. It doesn’t mean I like being around her, but you’re right.” 

You want to spit that she’s not the same as _Gamzee_ , for fuck’s sake. _One killed two people and painted messages in their blood, and might have killed the rest of us, too_ , you want to say. _One killed two people and immediately started making wild plans to undo it_. It’s not a ringing endorsement of Vriska, but you know it’s different. Instead, you say, "I'm always right. Should have learned that by now!" and try to remember.

For a while, the question of Gamzee’s intentions had weighed down on the group. You'd all watched him closely at first, and Vriska had gleefully ordered him around on that first day, but Karkat had intervened against the practicality of that plan; after frankly minimal arguing, Gamzee was set free onto the meteor, slipped away into a hallway, and had avoided the group ever since. 

“I’m not mad about it,” Vriska had told you afterward. “Even when he wasn’t murdering people, he made my skin crawl.”

It was the warmest you’d felt toward Karkat in the entire first half-perigee of your stay, because it meant you didn’t have to pathetically encourage her to let him leave herself. The hovering smell of greasepaint and tepid soda had made your stomach turn; you cannot stop thinking about the fake note from Vriska, the uniform he'd left in that room. You had prepared to kill Vriska, and he had been watching.

You can tell it concerns Vriska to have an unknown quantity roaming around on the meteor, but he seems, at last, intimidated enough by her to stay away. Aside from that one time. 

“Have you seen him at all?” Karkat asks, as if reading your mind. His posture has relaxed, at least; the outline of him, gray over bright cherry-red, is leaning against the hallway wall more casually. 

“No,” you lie, without knowing why. 

(It had been close to what you think would have been the middle of the day, though time has slowly lost its meaning on the meteor. In the middle of Plotting With Vriska And Terezi, you’d gone out to the horrible coffee machine in the room that had used to be the lab; since that first day when you’d avoided it, Rose and Kanaya had undergone a furious redecoration effort, and installed it with bookshelves and a carpet. The bright colors muted the scent of the steel walls and tangled wires; you could almost be there again without vividly remembering your vast array of dead and missing friends.

You’d fixed the two cups of it, then walked back out into the dark hallways, holding the two carefully in one hand. You had heard him before you smelled him; hints of purple, buried under old greasepaint and the damp, mildewy scent of the meteor’s air vents.

“Getting cozy with your bitch of a spidersis again?” you’d heard him say quietly. He sounded almost close to the lightly friendly, meandering voice that you’d found nothing less than harmlessly grating in the early days of the session, but there was a new, mocking edge to it. Then, without warning, he’d added, not shouting but projecting his voice to the point where it reverberated across the hallways: “SHE SHOULD BE MOTHERFUCKING DEAD, YOU KNOW.” 

“Stay away from us,” you’d said firmly. “You tried to get me to kill her, and it didn’t _fucking_ work. You’ve lost. _Get_ lost.” 

“Should have worked,” he said, stepping closer to you. You stood your ground, but shifted your grip on your cane. Based on the direction of his voice, he stood what you estimated to be at least two heads taller than you, one of his feet tapping a slow, steady rhythm against the ground. “WOULD HAVE WORKED.” 

“Go away, Makara,” you spit, and turned around to walk away from him. "I took you down once, I can do it again."

“I never minded you giving it a fair motherfucking shot, sister. Can’t you give a criminal his time of day?” he asked, catching up with you in two paces. “Are you not an officer of the mad heretic gospel you call justice? Are you not the ideal fucking model of a LAW ABIDING CITIZEN? Or has she put a stop to that? You up and MOTHERFUCKING LET HER GO, didn’t you? You up and LET ME GO.” 

You’d whacked him in the shin with the cane, and he'd jerked away from you at last, stumbling a bit; then you’d sped up and ducked into the first side hallway you’d seen, but not before he’d gotten the chance to call out, “CHARMING MOTHERFUCKING ENCOUNTER, HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOMETIME.” 

You were glad, when you got back, that Vriska was not you. You would have noticed someone’s breaths coming too short, their heart beating too fast. Vriska only grabbed the cup and asked, “What took you so long, Pyrope? Got lost?”) 

Here and now, Karkat doesn’t notice your lie either. “Me neither,” he sighs. “I think we scared him off with the whole tying him up thing. Not that I’m not grateful to you for that - fuck, I mean, he could have killed all of us, for all we know. I just wonder sometimes if there was another way.” 

“Yes,” you say quietly. “You have that right.” 

You don’t have the heart to tell him that, whatever the other way was, your other self had gone out of her way to prevent it. 

He seems to see you get lost in thought. You can tell he doesn’t know if you’re angry at him or not; this is fine by you, because you don’t know either. You do know you want to go to an empty room and bite at a stick of chalk while you and Vriska discuss future plans, or gossip about the others, or - sometimes - let yourselves lie on the floor of your respiteblocks and talk about what you’d do in the new universe. 

(“I don’t even know what I’d do,” you remember Vriska saying one time. “Hell, I was never even sure what I’d do on Alternia. I always thought I’d be some kind of badass admiral, but I’m guessing the humans aren’t hot on conquest.” She made a face. “They’re so soft, you know.” 

“Yes,” you had said. “Squeamish about murder.” 

“Couldn’t be us,” said Vriska. 

“Couldn’t be us,” you repeated, and you were lying. 

You thought back to the afternoons in her hive - how sometimes she’d go up the stairs and retreat to her room, then throw herself down on the floor, hug her knees, and silently make faces at the wall across from her, twisting her hands together tightly in her lap, shaking off attempts at comfort, snapping at attempts at speech. Then she’d get up, shake your hand, and exclaim, “All in a day’s work, Pyrope!”, with an expression that said _ask me about the last half hour and you're never coming back here_. Sometimes you thought of leaving, even got as far as standing up, but each time you'd stayed and watched her, just as you rescinded her weekly offers to stay upstairs while she handed the bodies off to her lusus. 

The memory makes you wonder now if she was lying, too. 

The truth is, you think you both try not to think about the new universe. When you consider it, you hit a wall. In your first session, you’d all had grand ambitions toward conquest. In one of your meetings on LOTAF, Karkat had talked loftily about you being some kind of head legislacerator figure, and you had cackled with glee at the idea, but you doubt you had pictured it in any more detail than imagining your FLARP character as the head of a new universe.) 

In the present, Karkat seems to sense your desire to leave. “Well - I’ll see you around,” he says, uncharacteristically quiet. 

“Yes.” 

“About Vriska - it’s your choice, Terezi,” he adds. “But she’s not your responsibility.” 

Some part of you wants to say _yes, she is_ , wants to hold on to the fact that she is _yours_ in some way that she needs - to hold back as much as to take care of. Another wants to say, “I know.” Any fantasy you’d had of changing Vriska had vanished with the day that you’d blown off her arm and eye. She is not yours to change. 

But maybe she’s her own to change. Maybe you have to believe she can.

You don’t tell him any of this. You say, “Thanks, Karkat,” and let him walk away from you. 

You only smell blueberry when you hear her move. “How long were you here?” you ask, not waiting for her to announce herself. 

“A bit.” 

“I like being around you again, you know,” you say, because you feel that you must say something. 

“Obviously,” she laughs, punching your shoulder cheerfully. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you?” 

The walk to your block is quiet, though in a way you're not used to. “I haven’t seen any dead Tavroses, by the way,” says Vriska at last. “Hah, thank god. Don’t know what I’d say to them.” 

“No,” you say. You wonder if the other you ever met the Vriska she killed. If you did, you wonder how she survived it. 

“They're probably the biggest losers around for miles, anyway. Shitty company. _Loooooooo-sers_.”

She still won’t look at you. “Vriska,” you start, “Karkat is just -”

“Pyrope, I’m not sensitive enough that anything _Vantas_ says is going to bother me,” she says. “Even the humans aren’t that pathetic. You think Lalonde would let that kind of shit get to her?” 

_Probably not_ , you think, _not you or Rose._

“I don’t need anyone to like me,” she continues cheerfully. “I just need them to listen to me, because I’m the one with the plans. We’re gonna land and I’m going to win them this battle, and if that doesn’t earn me their respect, well, fuck, it’s their loss. 'Cause either way, we’ll have done the work. We’re not even a perigee in, and we’ve already got –” 

“Irons in the fire,” you finish, wondering when you’ve come to indulge her to this extent.

“Irons in the fire,” she repeats; you can _hear_ the grin in her voice. “Everything else comes naturally! Vantas was never my number one fan in the first place.” 

“Of course not! That’s always you.” 

“Really?” Vriska stops, leans down so that her face is level with yours, and pokes your cheek. It’s an affectionate gesture, just on the border of pale, and you try not to think about what it means that some part of your brain lights up and buzzes when she does it. (You like it better, you think, than the weird joke about how you wouldn’t be her kismesis. Yes. But you’re not thinking about what it means, not yet.) 

“I think it’s _you_ , Pyrope,” she says, and this time you think she sounds happy. 

“I might be somewhere in the top ten,” you say. “Around the bottom.”

-

It says something about how you’re feeling in that moment that you don’t register the sound of movement in the walls around you, and you don’t check your palmhusk that night until Vriska’s bounded out of your respiteblock. There are four unread messages.

terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

 **TC: spidersis is right.** **  
****TC: I THINK YOU’RE HER NUMBER ONE FAN.** **  
****TC: not that you motherfucking know.** ****  
**TC: WHAT’S MOTHER FUCKING GOOD FOR YOU.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to imagine that the strategy meeting/time powers discussion is an emotional catalyst in your longform davekat fanfiction of choice, the kind where vriska is Bitch Ex Machina and terezi is there to say "hey vriska that's not nice" and then they vacate the narrative for five chapters. or you can always love yourself more than that and imagine it into one where women are people, it's your choice 
> 
> i'm on tumblr at mayleavestars!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You think you smell her move her hand in a familiar gesture - just pointing at you, then him, then a smile and a hand moved across her throat. You remember it from your FLARPing days. It means: you can have this one, I’m covering you. 
> 
> \- 
> 
> 3P1C CLOWN T8K3DOWN CH4PT3R 4LL CLOWNS B3W4RE. in other words: contains the gamzee confrontation from vriskagram with the kinda unsettling overtones that this initially entails

After getting Gamzee’s messages, you do not stop going places alone, because that would be stupid. You _do_ start locking your door, though, which throws Vriska for a loop. 

“Trying to keep me out?” she asks the first time it happens. 

“I am not,” you answer, from where you’re sitting on a pile of scalemates and - boredom having struck - actually reading a Kanaya-recommended romance novel. Reading material can be hard to come by on the meteor. “Last time I checked, you were still physically able to knock on doors.” 

“Yeah,” she says, still sounding uncertain, but sits down next to you anyway. “What are you reading?” 

Face straight, you say, “An innocent lowblood woman enters a moirallegiance with an isolated, dangerous highblood. Will the other woman’s bloody reputation and dangerous secret prevent the two from vacillating into the red quadrant? The dangerous secret is she's a rainbow drinker, and you are completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Come on, Vriska, be blown away.” 

“Fuck, Terezi, is that one of Maryam’s? I could have lent you _Mistress and Commander_.”

“Vriska,” you say seriously, “There’s a lot of things I’d do for you, but reading Troll Patrick O’Brian isn’t one of them.” 

“You could skim the technical parts,” said Vriska, throwing herself down into the pile. Somewhere beneath her, Inspector Berrybreath lets out an undignified squeak. “Or, like, smell those parts instead of licking them. I hope that’s not Kanaya’s only copy of the book, by the way.” 

“She alchemized me my own.” 

“Do an actually good book next, I’m begging you. Even _I_ skim the technical bits.” She stage-whispers the last sentence, as if entrusting you with a precious secret.

“Yes,” you say, “considering you barely know port from starboard, that doesn’t shock me.” She snorts, and you feel her sharp chin dig into your shoulder. 

“Pale to red,” she said. “She was all over that shit for a while. I never got it.” 

“You never cared about quadrants much, did you?” 

The irony of asking her this while you’re literally located atop a pile, together, is not lost on you; instead, it hits you reliably and is filed away. Sometimes you think you _are_ pale for her. Right now, feeling her peer curiously over your shoulder, it feels natural to want to pull her close to you, card your fingers through your hair, tell her your fears and entertain the fantasy that she will tell you hers in turn, if she has any. 

Other times, you remember the rest of your lives - the sweeps of collaboration, the betrayal, the mutual revenge - and pale feels all wrong, not too _good_ necessarily but too simple. Too small, as big as you know it should feel. You don’t know what to do with that, and you have no desire to ask Karkat (you doubt he’d tell you anything useful, anyway - he likes names and categories, has always liked them, even when he fails to follow them). So instead, you file it into a big, carefully-sequestered void in your head that might as well just be called _Vriska_ ; at once self-defining and inexplicable, and definitely too big to think about.

Beside you, she’s shifting uncertainly. “Quadrants? Fuck, I mean I guess I did back in the day. If you don’t plan that shit out in advance, that’s asking to get culled. There was Eridan, and – well. I was great at quadrants! The greaaaaaaaatest. But maybe not right now. We’ve got a war to win, right?” She hesitates for a moment. “What about you? If you weren’t officially future-banned from dating Vantas and Strider, would you be after -” 

“No,” you say, quick and sure of yourself. “That is, I have no idea about the other timeline, but _I_ am very much not interested.” 

“I always knew your taste would improve,” she says, and you don’t insult her taste in turn, much as it might be deserved. Instead, you let her read out a melodramatic line of dialogue from the novel, and return one in kind, and wile away the night like this. Her head moves down, eventually, to your shoulder. You let it.

-

Still, you don’t tell her about Gamzee. You ask if anyone’s seen or heard him at the next strategy meeting, and when you get a ubiquitous no, something stops you from speaking. Maybe you’re worried Vriska will ask to keep an eye on him again, making everyone have to deal with him on a daily basis. More likely, what you’re scared of is that someone will think you’re scared. If you tell Vriska he’s been following you around (or maybe he hasn’t, even - it had only been twice) you feel sure that she will take it as a request for help. And if what has kept her at your side so far is her respect for you, losing it frightens you more than you’d admit. 

Someone like Kanaya, you’re sure, would call this reasoning Worryingly Unhealthy. Someone like Kanaya also stayed in a moirallegiance with Vriska for something like a sweep, all while harboring secret red feelings for her, so you think you have the right to reject Imaginary Kanaya’s advice. 

It’s easy to forget about, anyway. If you’re in the library with Rose and Kanaya, or popping in to help Dave and the Mayor (with the increasingly frequent addition of Karkat) expand their fair imaginary municipality, or wasting hours and days and weeks with Vriska, everything’s fine. The problem is the in-betweens, when you’re walking through the meteor’s seemingly infinite hallways. You’ve taken to listening for odd noises, for walking in the center of hallways as if the walls themselves are your enemy. 

Vriska notices, which you should expect, considering how much time you spend around her, but it still catches you off guard. You don’t remember the last time anyone noticed something about you that you didn’t deliberately project. 

“You’re so jumpy recently,” she says with a frown; you’re lying on the floor of her block, and the maps of the meteor you’ve been working on have been discarded in favor of just drawing together. “Are you listening for the clown?”

“Sure,” you say, hesitating only for a moment. “Never harm in listening for a clown who never technically promised that he wouldn’t come back and murder the rest of your friends.” 

“I’d expect nothing less,” she says with a grin, reaching over to fistbump you. “Justice never rests! But you’re not _worrying_ about it, right? If he shows his ugly, greasepainted face around here, we’re taking him down so fast, he won’t have time for an invocation to his stupid Messiahs.”

“Not even for a honk,” you say halfheartedly, and hope she’s right. 

“Seriously,” she says, and now her face is lifted to be directly level with yours; you repeat the gesture, for the sake of letting her know you’re listening to what she’s saying. From this close, you can smell the faint hints of blue in her cheeks. “One Scourge Sister took him down easily, imagine what two would do.” There’s an eagerness in her voice, as if she’d be pleased with a chance to get at him.

She avoids your FLARP team name on most occasions, just as she hasn’t referenced your ancestors since the stupid Dualscar joke. When she _does_ reference it, then, you think it’s taken on a kind of special meaning. _Remember what we can do together_. 

“Just don’t hunt him down,” you say, almost against your will, because Clown Hunting With Vriska And Terezi sounds like it could be good for you at this point. Maybe you’d invite Kanaya. Make a team bonding activity out of it. “Karkat won’t like it.” 

“You’re no fun, Pyrope,” she says, but she knows you know she’s smiling. 

-

He finds you something like six human months in, walking from Rose’s library to your respiteblock. 

It’s not even daytime. Or: it’s not even the time whenever everyone sleeps, because it’s not like the light changes here, and Dave and Rose call it _nighttime_ out of habit. Regardless of day and night, whatever it is they still mean here, the meteor is equally dark and empty in sleep cycle upon sleep cycle, and it’s easy to be alone. Easy to find someone alone, if you’re looking for them. 

“Long time no see, my good legislacerator bitch,” he says, the words masked with an ugly film of apparent pleasantness, then pauses for a moment. “Sorry, my tragic motherfucking past has left my thinkpan all rotted, and I FORGOT YOU COULDN’T SEE SHIT.” 

“Gamzee,” you say, “I make that joke once a week with far more elegance and grace than you ever could.” Still, there’s something about the way he says it. Vriska and Dave and you yourself have pulled out that punchline a million times, and nobody had ever said it like _that_ , not with what sounded like genuine dismissal. 

He walks toward you in just a few strides; you’d forgotten how fast he could move, and you’re scrambling back by instinct until your back hits the wall. His face is far too close to yours. Greasepaint and mildew. The sugary scent of Faygo. Faint hints of grape. 

“Well?” he asks quietly. “Aren’t you going to get your motherfucking law on? Hunt me down again? Did it the MOTHER FUCKING FIRST TIME, didn’t you? Deviated from the MOTHER FUCKING PLOT. Got your motherfucking RETCON ON.” 

“I don’t know,” you say, “what you’re talking about.” 

“You and spidersis are interfering in a DIVINE MOTHER FUCKING PLAN,” he says, and when he yells _divine plan_ , it reverberates around the hallways. “Fills my pusher with pure miraculous motherfucking rage, sister. Fills me with the thirst for MOTHER FUCKING REVENGE.” 

“Don’t touch Vriska,” you say, because _that_ you do understand. “Not a claw on her, Makara, I mean it.” 

“Oh, she’ll get what’s coming to her,” he smiles. “You’ll all get what’s motherfucking coming to you. But I’ve seen you sniffing around for me. JUSTICE NEVER MOTHER FUCKING SLEEPS.” 

“I’m sniffing around for you because you keep following me through the fucking vents,” you snap, “which I’d like for you to stop, by the way. Did you know you smell rank, by the way? It's giving me a headache.” 

He grins even wider, like you were worried he might. Even far before the game, when he was nothing more than Karkat’s mostly-harmless clown friend, that had always gotten to you. There wasn’t a damn thing you could say to him that he’d react to, not unless he was trying to get a rise out of you in turn. 

“That’s sounding a little bit motherfucking CALIGINOUS,” he says now, and his voice has gotten softer, his face closer. “I KNEW IT, MY BITCH. Been seeing you, wandering these hallways. Thinking about criminals. All up and _cogitating_ about all those murders I did. IF YOU WANT TO MOTHER FUCKING HATE ME, WHY DON’T WE DO THAT SHIT PROPERLY?” 

He moves his hand up to brace himself against the wall, trapping you further, leaning in closer. Your hands do not shake. _You are not afraid. You are not afraid_. A caliginous come-on from a murderous fucking clown. Insultingly enough, one he’s tried to frame as _your_ caliginous come-on. You are _not_ afraid. 

Greasepaint and mildew. Too close to you, _way_ too close to you. It’s giving you a fucking headache is what it’s doing, making it hard to smell anything else. That part was not a lie. But somewhere under it – 

– You take a deep breath through your nose to make sure. Gamzee smirks, like he thinks it’s a sign of fear, but no - it’s that Vriska’s standing directly behind him, her whole body tense with the desire to attack. For some reason, though, she’s standing still. You’re not sure how long she’s been there. 

It’s then that you think you can disginguish her moving her hand in a familiar gesture - just pointing at you, then him, then a hand moved across her throat. You remember it from your FLARPing days. It means _you can have this one_ , _I’m covering you_. 

“You’d like to be my kismesis, Makara?” you say out loud. “That’s a big offer. Give me a few moments to consider it.” 

“You don’t need a few motherfucking moments,” he starts to say, a huge hand moving towards you, and then you’ve grabbed your cane with both hands and brought it up with a crack against his chest, pushing him backwards. It unbalances him slightly, and he takes a few steps back, to where Vriska has thrown herself onto the floor, directly in his path. 

The advantage of Gamzee Makara’s terrifying height is that, when he topples down and hits the floor, the effect is fucking glorious. 

“I had my moment,” you tell him, whacking him with your cane again for good measure. “My answer’s never. Don’t you dare ask again.” 

“Yes,” Vriska says; you reach a hand out to her, and she dusts herself off, making a show of disgust about the place where Gamzee’s shoe had touched her. “If I catch you near her again, you’ll get a lot more than an embarrassing fall.” 

“ _Vriska_ ,” you say, feeling embarrassment surface in the weird cocktail of fear, relief, and delight that fills your thinkpan right now. “You really don’t have to threaten people on my behalf.” 

“Scourge Sisters stick together,” she tells you, swinging an arm over her shoulder. “I took on Jack Noir in an alternate universe, but you can’t tell me you wouldn’t trip a clown for me.” 

“I would trip a clown for you,” you say, defeated. Now that Gamzee is safely subdued, watching the two of you walk away, you feel your body crashing, just a little bit, noticing how hard you had been concentrating, how hard your pusher was beating. You are pathetically glad to have Vriska’s arm around you.

She looks back over her shoulder with satisfaction. “God, Maryam’s going to be so jealous that we got to him first. Our one decent conversation in the last month was about how much she wants to chainsaw the guy.” 

“Do you miss her?” you ask. “You guys were moirails, right?” Casual. As if you don't know for sure.

She shrugs. “Don’t know if I have the right to miss her,” she says. “I was a pretty shitty moirail.” 

“Probably,” you say, even though that wasn’t what you were asking. Maybe you’re scared to get the real answer, if it’s going to be _I would enter infinite palejams with Kanaya given the chance_. 

When she’s in your room, she stops and looks you up and down, smelling inexplicably worried. _Worryingly_ worried, in that every time Vriska seems worried, the wrongness of it nags at you.

“You’re okay, right?” she asks. “Like, he didn’t -” 

“We were just talking,” you assure her. “Nothing would have come of it, but I’m glad you were here.” 

“Hell yeah you’re glad I’m here,” she says, her face breaking out into a familiar smile - smugness, you’re sure, because _relief_ would be even stranger than worry. “Who else would describe the look on that asshole’s face to you in detail?” 

-

arachnidsGrip [AG] has opened a memo on board IR8NS IN THE F8CKING FIRE RUMPUS F8CTORY. 

AG: Hey losers!!!!!!!!  
AG: Just popping in to say Terezi and I took care of a 8rief clown pro8lem today!  
AG: Situation handled easily 8ut I 8elieve in the importance of transparency ::::)   
CG: FIRST OF ALL, THAT’S THE BIGGEST LIE I’VE EVER HEARD  
CG: SECOND OF ALL, FUCK, YOU SAW GAMZEE???  
CG: ALSO THIS IS THE MOST NONSENSICAL BOARD NAME I’VE EVER SEEN AND I WITNESSED TEREZI’S EFFORTS SO THAT’S SAYING A LOT  
AG: Yeah!!!!!!!!  
AG: Like I said, Terezi and I ran into him.  
GA: Wait What Was He Doing  
GA: Did You Go Looking For Him  
GA: And In That Case Why Was I Not Invited  
TG: im on record as not knowing what the fuck any of this means but vriska this is low of you  
TG: youd leave kanaya out of attempted clownicide??  
TG: have you no sense of decency  
TG: kanaya this is further proof that there is one person you can trust on this meteor and that is me  
GA: Thank You Dave  
GA: I Dont Know Where Id Be Without Your Human Emotion Called Chivalry  
GA: Which Is A Stupid Word Your Sister Taught Me When Discussing Earth History  
GC: K4N4Y4 W3 BOTH KNOW W3’D N3V3R L34V3 YOU OUT OF A D3L1B3R4T3 CLOWN HUNT1NG 3XP3D1T1ON >:]  
GC: NO TH1S W4S 4N 4CC1D3NT4L 3NCOUNT3R  
GC: H3 SHOW3D UP TO S4Y SOM3TH1NG W31RD 4BOUT D1V1N3 PL4NS 4ND M3SS14HS 4ND TH3 USU4L G4RB4G3  
CG: SO HE WAS… JUST TALKING TO YOU GUYS?  
GC: T4LK1NG 4ND M4K1NG W31RD THR34TS  
AG: So we delivered a beatdown of appropri8 proportions!  
AG: Nothing permanent, Karkat, 8efore you ask.  
AG: So I t8ke it 8ack! A 8eatdown of inappropri8ly low proportions.   
CG: VRISKA I SWEAR  
AG banned CG from responding to memo.  
AG: Not today Vantas!!!!!!!!  
AG: Cry a8out it to the Mayor or something.  
GC: VR1SK4 1 KNOW 1T T4K3S 4 MONUM3NT4L 3FFORT BUT W3'R3 TRY1NG NOT TO B3 TOT4L 4SSHOL3S H3R3  
TT: Before we continue down this path of unquestionable ensemble-wide hilarity.  
TT: What kinds of threats?  
TT: If he’s demonstrated an intent to harm any of us, I believe we have a right to know more details.  
AG: Relax, Lalonde, we’ve got it under control!  
GC: WH4T VR1SK4 M34NS TO S4Y 1S TH4T NO H3 D1D NOT ST4T3 4N 1NT3NT1ON TO MURD3R US  
GC: H3 W4S JUST B31NG 4 CR33PY P41N 1N TH3 4SS >:[  
GC: 4LSO  
GC unbanned CG from responding to memo.  
GC: DON'T S4Y 1'V3 N3V3R DON3 4NYTH1NG FOR YOU K4RK4T  
GC: 1 3XP3CT YOU TO R3P4Y TH1S D3BT 4T YOUR 34RL13ST CONV3N13NC3 >:]

“We _can_ tell them he came onto me,” you say as you close out of the memo. “If you think it’s important –” 

“We don’t have to tell them every damn thing,” said Vriska. “I mean, the satisfaction of everyone else knowing we kicked his ass first? Excellent. The knowledge that I am continuing to single-handedly uphold the safety and wellbeing of this timeline? Also pretty great.” 

(You never know how to feel when she says things like that. Part of you always wants to hunt your other self down through paradox space, death notwithstanding, shake her by the shoulders, and yell, “You thought this was a good idea? Really? This?” And then you remember the force of Vriska, her _confidence_ , and most of all the alternative, and suddenly you are far more willing to let her talk herself up.) 

“But that doesn’t mean you need to flash your damn quadrants to them for the sake of feeling like you’re communicating with the team,” she adds. “That can be private if you want it to be.” 

“I think I want it to be,” you say. And then, raising your voice, “I mean, if Gamzee’s the best I can get in the pitch quadrant, might as well swear it off for the rest of my life.” 

“Don’t say that, Pyrope, any troll would be lucky for a chance to hate you!” She exclaims it sincerely, and makes a face. “Ugh, the humans are rubbing off on me. I actually had to wonder if that was insulting.” 

You make a face at her. “If _you_ have to think about it,” you say, “they must be a corrupting influence of unfathomable power.” 

Vriska takes a second to work this out, then cries out, “Shut up, I can be nice! Nobody can beat Vriska Serket at being nice, Pyrope, she is simply the best there is!” 

“I am going to record you saying that and send it to Karkat, and then you’ll be forced to live up to it,” you threaten. “And then Egbert will have to come unfuck all of causality again, because the fallout will have unfathomable consequences across every timeline.” 

A tussle ensues on the floor of her respiteblock, which ends in her sitting triumphantly on your stomach, arms folded. 

“We’re going to beat Lord English,” Vriska announces, like it’s winning a FLARP match and not killing the Lord of fucking Time, “And then I am going to be _so nice_. To everyone. Even Vantas.” 

Vriska Serket is dangerous. An indisputable fact with a million points of evidence. But you the one you think of now might be new: when she says these things, you sometimes believe her. 

-

Day and night have intertwined. The words for them are used interchangeably by trolls and humans; the only way you have of keeping time (besides bothering Dave at odd hours) is palmhusks and computers, and usually all they’re telling you is how wildly off-base your sleep schedule is. 

That night, though, you _do_ part from Vriska at a vaguely decent time. (“Can’t beat up one clown without getting tired? We’ll have to work on it,” she says, in lieu of a goodbye.) And youthink you’re tired, but when you’re back in your room, the sight of your recuperacoon is suddenly unappealing. The idea of slipping back into a dream bubble, of wondering vaguely whether Doomed Terezi is somewhere out there or whether she disappeared from existence, of revisiting terrains you’ll never smell and hear again – often it’s exciting, or intriguing. But sometimes it’s neither. 

Back on the pile of scalemates it is, then. Brooding. Some brooding never hurt anyone. 

You do not want to play this game. It is a game called _what-would-I-be-doing-right-now-if-I’d-killed-Vriska_ , and you hate it, and it is your least favorite game in the world, but you play it anyway, on nights when you can’t sleep, or sometimes when she’s sitting next to you in a room and thinking out loud, or when the two of you are making your way through a dream bubble to do reconnaissance. Usually the only answer you can come up with is _being miserable_ , or, on a good day, _bothering Dave, maybe?_ But Dave doesn’t trust you, and you are sure that you and Karkat are needlessly complicated in any universe, and Rose and Kanaya would still have been immersed in each other; that, you think, is a universal constant. So, no, even on a good day it’s still being miserable.

Today, you remember Gamzee and think, before you can stop yourself: _if Vriska hadn’t been there, I might have said yes_. 

That’s not true, you protest immediately. Physically speaking, I could probably have taken him on. I _did_. She was just there for moral support. 

You think back to the moment. He’d disgusted you. Surely, _surely_ , in a world where he had successfully manipulated you into killing Vriska, you’d have hated him more and not less. 

Or maybe you’d have hated yourself even more than that. 

There is no difference between you and the other Terezi except the fact that she came first. A flip of a coin, and you could have been her instead. The thought gives you a headache, which it shouldn't, because timelines and choices are supposed to be your _thing_ , but it does anyway. You want to know, at least, because maybe that would make you feel better - maybe then you’d understand, at least, what your point of comparison is. Maybe you’d close a tiny fraction of the debt you owe the other self; understand her, at least, see her, appreciate the scope of her sacrifice. Because the memory of Gamzee’s leering face, and of a branch of possibility you hadn’t thought was worth giving thought to at all, is making you remember (like you’re remembering, over and over again) that the story of the other you is a far more complex thing than the story of her death. 

You want to know, want to trace its steps. You want to remember. 

But you can’t do that; you can't use your powers and you have a strong feeling that the dream bubbles won’t hold answers for you, that descending into their mess of memory and failed potential will leave you wrecked tonight. There’s really only two routes that hold any appeal for you: you could stay on this pile indefinitely, cry about it, and hold off sleep until tomorrow night, or the day after that. 

That’s what your other self might have done. 

But you have another option, even if it's the most frightening option there is, and Vriska could still be awake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> re: the act of getting one's motherfucking retcon on: one of the ways i can be assed to think about gamzee outside the context of forgetting he's not real long enough to want to beat him into a pulp is by buying into the idea that he has some level of extracanonical/metatextual awareness about the story he's in, the fact that it's a story, and the shit he's doing to fuck it up. or failing to fuck it up, in this case! either way, he seems to be aware within vriskagram that vriska's presence has interfered with a pre-existing plan. 
> 
> disclaimer: i have never read a patrick o'brien novel in my life i just think the idea of vriska being like "yeah i like Naval Literature ::::)" and then skimming over any description of how a ship works is really funny
> 
> if you've commented on this fic so far or read it in general i loooooooove you you are all so nice :') 
> 
> settling on a tentative biweekly update schedule! also the chapter count changed to accommodate Bold Structural Choices (they are not that bold)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can you tell me what’s wrong now?” she says at last, as if worried you’ll start crying again. “Now that I have gallantly and heroically shooshed you in a way that wasn’t at all funny, thank you very much?”

It says a lot about the last six months - 

First of all, it says a lot about the last six months that you keep on calling them months by accident. But more importantly, it says a lot about the last three-ish perigees that you are able to resist spending the night weeping into Inspector Berrybreath like a wriggler. Instead you get up, walk out the door, and make the familiar trek to Vriska’s block. 

If she’s asleep, she’ll just not answer, you tell yourself. In thinking this, you are able to knock on her door. You are able to convince yourself that she will let you in, that you will talk trash, that she’ll pat you playfully on the shoulder, make some stupid joke about how great she is, and then you’ll – not feel better about all of it, no. Not about the inexorable fact that you were this close to throwing her away, too stupid to think, to take the third option without outside interference. But you will have reminded yourself she is here, and you will have made each other laugh, and it will have been enough. 

The door swings open, and you know now that her happiness has its own scent. Her sharp teeth are exposed, a flash of white; her lipstick is still on, smudged slightly across her chin; there’s a hint of blueberry warmth in her cheeks. When had she started smelling like that when she’d seen you? You wish you could have marked down the change.

“Missed me already, Pyrope?” she asked cheerfully, and you’ve barely made it into a “You wish, Serket, I’m here because your colored pencils taste delicious,” before suddenly the words dissolve into sobs. 

“Wh- Terezi!” she says, and you can’t handle her saying your name, can’t handle her taking you carefully by the shoulders and closing the door, can’t handle her letting go of you to shove a pile of clothes off her reclining platform. Then she clumsily pulls you down to sit across from her, angled sidewise to face her.

“Terezi,” she says, still sounding immensely nervous. You realize you haven’t cried in front of her since you were at most five, maybe younger. “Come on, Terezi, talk to me.” 

Whatever part of your thinkpan is still smart enough to be mortified leads you to choke out, “I’m sorry, this is stupid, I can go –” 

“Hold up, you’re not going anywhere!” 

Vriska lunges forward to take hold of your shoulders again. She’s looking at you so closely it almost hurts, and even though it does nothing for you, you turn your face away.

“How can you even look at me?” you ask miserably.

“Whoa.” Vriska’s hands slip down from your shoulders. “What - Terezi, what the hell are you talking about?” she demands. “Is this about quadrants again? Because –” 

“”It’s not about quadrants,” you snap. “It’s about how you don’t even _care_ that I nearly fucking killed you.” 

You’re close enough to smell it when she blinks. Once, twice. A silence stretches out between the two of you. 

“I thought,” she says at last, “that we sorted this all out way back when.” All this time, she has sounded genuinely caught off-guard, in a way that infuriates you to an unfair degree. 

“No! No, Vriska, we did not _sort this out,_ what happened is that you said ‘You nearly killed me? How cool is that!’ and expected me to just move on from it!” 

“I didn’t think it was a big deal to you! It wasn’t a big deal to me! Not - you were being a hero, and I was being an idiot – and all that aside, it’s not like it was even the first time, you got me good with that cue ball, too –” 

At the mention of the cue ball, you can’t even answer, because you’re back to crying stupidly into your own cupped hands. All you taste is salt and teal, and the rims of your glasses dig into your palms, and you can barely fucking smell anything. 

“Hey. Hey,” Vriska says; there’s a tremor to it that sounds, as ever, entirely alien. Carefully, she pries your hands from your face, takes off your glasses, and reaches down to put them on the floor. 

You try to mumble an apology, but before you can manage she’s reaching out and pulling you towards her, leaning back until your face is buried in the worn fabric of her shirt. 

“Terezi, I’m sorry,” she says, sounding a little frantic. “I shouldn’t have brought up the revenge bullshit - worst mistake of my life anyway - I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just ignore whatever I said earlier that I shouldn’t have said - hey, hey, it’s okay! I’m not mad at you! I’m not mad at you for any of it, Terezi, Terezi? ...Shoosh?” 

The last word is paired with a very, very tentative pap on your tear-soaked cheek, and something about it, either how uncertain she sounds, or that it fucking clears the noise in your head a bit anyway, just a bit - makes you sniffle your way into a watery laugh. 

“Hey, what’s so funny?” Vriska says indignantly, pulling her hand away as if burned. Because the whims of Paradox Space have arranged themselves to rob you of all your dignity in one night, you let out a soft, unwitting whine of protest at the loss of contact. 

She brings her hand back to rest in your hair. For a while, against all rationality, the two of you stay like this - her, patting your hair and making only _slightly_ embarrassed-sounding shooshing noises as you pull yourself together. 

“Can you tell me what’s wrong now?” she says at last, as if worried you’ll start crying again. “Now that I have gallantly and heroically shooshed you in a way that wasn’t at all funny, thank you very much?”

Vriska’s feelings are always – well, they’re not _impossible_ to hurt, but they’re impossible to keep track of, and she’s certainly impossible to try to comfort. You’ve known this since those nights in the aftermath of feeding the spider. She rejects all attempts at comfort, makes you feel as if you were stupid for trying. And yet sometimes she still seems to need it – at least enough to keep you thinking she might. 

As ever, then, you resign yourself to trying. Now of all times, the new debt has to be narrowed in whatever way it can. 

“Nobody could have done better,” you say. “Thank you.” 

The problem is, you mean it. The problem is that nobody has ever made you feel this way. Your actions are nothing if not objectively embarrassing, but you don’t feel small or powerless. Hell, you feel _safe._ The others would react to this fact with anything ranging from worry to disbelief, but that doesn’t make it less true.

“Well, obviously I did great,” she answers loftily, but she does sound proud. “Now tell me what’s wrong!” 

It takes you a few minutes to collect the words, but for once Vriska is quiet as she waits. “It bothers me,” you say at last. “That you forgave me that easily. There’s so much I – Vriska, I would have killed you. I _did_ kill you, in another timeline. And I don’t know how the other Terezi died, but I know she made this same trip that we’re making right now. And fuck, Vriska, she - she was so _lonely_. I just know it.” 

Vriska wavers; her hand stills in your hair. “That’s not true,” she says at last. “I mean - I’m awesome, I know, but you’re so… I know you maybe don’t want to talk about before the Game, but you were doing fine without me back then.” 

_Was I?,_ you ask yourself. You know you had not allowed yourself to miss her. You know that Karkat and Sollux had been impressed by the revenge you’d orchestrated, if horrified by its consequences. You know that you’d moved through life as if it were normal, fantasized sometimes about becoming a full-fledged legislacerator and hunting Vriska down for something _big_ , completing your ancestor’s _real_ work. You know that when she’d trolled you, you’d always maintained a cheerful affectation of indifference. You know that your friends had learned not to bring her up to you if you hadn’t brought her up first.

Three perigees into this trip, you’re not sure you know what _fine_ means anymore. You’re not sure anything means anything aside from what you want it to believe. You had once been very, very sure of what truth was. This is evidently no longer the case. 

Vriska shifts uncomfortably, seeming to sense a dead end somewhere in your silence. “Besides, all of them like you.” 

You are self-possessed enough that you don’t tell her what you think, which is, _sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes you don’t just want to be liked, you want to be known._ And Vriska is so unaware of a million things, has the capacity to be so cruel, but she also knows you, has always known you; knows you now almost against your will. You can’t escape the extent of it, and instead you orient yourself, seek her out like a light, bask in the aftereffects of her confidence – as rival or as ally, you have always defined yourself around her. 

You don’t say any of this. Instead, you say what is somehow the easier part: “But I’d know you were dead. I’d know it was my fault.” Her hand stiffens, and you shake your head in warning. Your horns have caught in her shirt a little.

“Please don’t argue. Just trust me when I say this – I couldn’t live with it. I don’t want to live with it, and I was stupid to think I could, and –” 

“Hey, you don’t have to.” Her voice is so _soft_ , and it’s not Vriska at all, at least not the Vriska that she prides herself on being. You hate yourself for being what’s forced her to stray so far from herself. She has never had time for this - not for red, not for pale, nothing of the sort. “It’s okay. That’s not – it’s like John told you, Terezi, this is a fresh start.” 

“But it wasn’t a choice I made,” you say miserably. “What the fuck gave me the authority to be the Alpha Terezi? Only that I was lucky enough to be stopped.” 

You think of the doomed Dave again. Consigned to death by the flip of a coin, and by you, thinking you were so fucking _clever_. That’s the trick Paradox Space has pulled on you and her. The heroic Terezi who suffers and saves the day; the Terezi who lives, who gets to keep Vriska, having done nothing to deserve it. 

“If it makes you feel any better,” Vriska says, and then takes a deep breath, as if what she’s about to say will hurt her, “I didn’t make the choice to fight Jack. Egbert had to punch me out. So we’re even, and we could waste a lot of time being sad about what would happen if we were the wrong versions of ourselves. But those versions don’t have to matter! They don’t matter any more than all those loser alternate selves we see in the dream bubbles. You’ll drive yourself insane thinking about it.” 

“That’s kind of my job, though,” you remind her. “Seer of mind, remember?” 

You don’t tell her that you think about the dream bubbles, too. You are haunted by _every_ timeline that wasn’t, just by one more than others. 

Against you, she sighs. You can feel her chest move beneath where your head is resting against it. “How long have you been letting this get to you?” she says at last. 

You try to communicate a shrug without actually unwrapping yourself from around her. 

“You could have told me,” she says quietly. “Fuck, you could have told me about Gamzee, too. That wasn’t the first time he’d talked to you, was it?” 

“I don’t have to tell you everything,” you say with irritation, and regret it the moment you do, because she squirms out from under you and sits up, crossing her arms. 

“I’d like you to tell me when you’re, you know, being followed around by a clown who’s killed two of our friends, or feeling so guilty about things you can’t control that it leaves you crying like the fucking world’s ending in the middle of the night! Crazy request, I know! But I’d like to be there, Terezi. I’d like to _help_.” 

“Why?” you ask, angry and just a little breathless. “Why do you want - are we moirails now, is that it?” 

“Is that really so ridiculous?” Vriska cries out. “Fucking unimaginable! You can cry into my shirt and I can shooshpap you but we can’t be moirails! I mean, fuck, apparently I can’t _even_ do blackrom right because all I can get is Ampora, and forget the red quadrant, and don’t get involved with me in diamonds ‘cause whatever I did with Maryam left her ignoring me the whole session, and apparently when I _try_ to care about _your_ feelings, which I _do_ , it’s really fucking funny -” 

And now you don’t need a fully cleared nose to know that Vriska’s eyes and cheeks smell like faint, diluted blueberry. Gently, as if afraid she’ll burn at the touch, you reach out and touch her cheek. 

“Hey,” you say gently. “That’s not what I meant at all.” 

And then, quietly: “I’m sorry.” 

“I don’t need consolation papping, Pyrope,” she says, her shoulders hunched, leaning into the touch as she’s saying it. “I can fucking handle a bit of rejection.” 

You lift your chin so that your face is directly facing hers again. Functionally, for you, it means nothing; symbolically, it means a lot. 

“Vriska, I _am_ pale for you,” you say patiently, letting the words become suffused with a kind of emotion you don’t generally put into them. “I’ve been pale for you, all this time.” 

(If you were honest with yourself, which you always can’t help being eventually, you would know it is not quite the truth. It was never quite the truth. In her room, watching her twist her fingers and make faces at the wall, you remember thinking you would tear the universe apart to save her from this, even if she didn’t want you to, even if she fought you for it every step of the way, and that wasn’t pale, even if it was something like it. Just like it wasn’t black when you’d typed up your first message to her man on the moon, the knowledge of what you thought was justice burning through your veins. Just like it isn’t red when – 

But fuck it. Pale is as good as anything else, and if there is no truth, then truth is what you make of it for the moment, what you want it to be. If your feelings don’t work properly, you don’t need to punish her for it. And you are happy here. You are happy like this.) 

As always, she makes you regret considering that anything you do could ever seriously upset her. “Well, good! What even took you so long, we’ve been edging for pale ever since you nearly st – ever since the humans landed.” 

Even the clumsy attempt to avoid joking about the attempted murder leaves you smiling widely. And there’s something there. She isn’t _not_ pale for you, she doesn’t _not_ care, because when she leans forward her face is focused fully on yours, and the scent of her is soft and relieved, and she’s definitely smiling now - not a Cocky Serket Grin, you are familiar with the blurry smell-shape of that, but something different. 

“I didn’t think you wanted to,” you say as explanation. “Didn’t think you had time for that kind of thing.” 

She scoffs. “You’re supposed to be the smart one, Terezi. I _always_ have time for my moirail.” Definitely an uptick of smugness in her voice in that last sentence; pride in the line, you think, which she declares like a battle strategy. Then she leans forward and kisses you - a pale kiss, on the corner of the lips, but having it from Vriska leaves you more lost in your own head than you’ve ever been. It’s not a kind of intimacy you’ve ever had before. Not that your experience is extensive - just pecks with Vriska and Aradia when you were wrigglers, and that sort-of-kiss with Karkat on LOPAH. 

This is different. A kiss like this means that you’re someone’s in a far more substantial way than you’ve ever been before. A kiss like that means _I’ll take care of you,_ and that’d be frightening with anyone but it’s terrifying with Vriska because you think you want to let her. In a battle between her pity and her respect, you had wanted to believe you’d choose her respect over and over. This kiss, the way she touches you now, the way you feel when it happens - the safest that you remember feeling in a long time - throws that belief under question. 

You put a finger on her lips - just as a reference point - and kiss her back in the same place she’d kissed you. 

The small happy exhale she lets out when you pull away is frightening too - it means that maybe she hasn’t needed this like you did, but she does want it. It means that you see more of her than the others do, even when she doesn’t want you to. It means that you want to be Terezi Pyrope, Person Who Understands Vriska Serket - the one mind you have always Seen, the one person you have always known for the mere purpose of wanting to know them – but you are at risk of letting your pity try to mold her into someone she’ll never be. Someone who needs you in the same way you have come to need her. 

You know, you tell yourself. If you know, it’s not so bad. You are not entertaining the fantasy of getting to keep her. 

“That was ridiculously sappy,” you say out loud, back in the present moment. “Wow. I’m ashamed of myself.” 

“Shut up, Pyrope,” she says. “I’ve got pale moves. I’ve got allllllll the pale moves, and you like them.” 

You laugh, and she laughs with you, and you resign yourself to needing her; remind yourself that you haven’t lost her yet, that you don’t know when you’ll have to. You move up on her couch until you’re able to tuck her head under your chin at an angle, thread your hands through her hair like you’ve wanted to for weeks. Her breathing is even against yours. You think she’s happy. 

Your name is Terezi Pyrope. There is a meteor being propelled through the Furthest Ring by the efforts of two nearly-departed friends and Troll Isaac Newton. In a dark room, one of thousands of dark rooms, the girl you didn’t kill rests in your arms. 

Nothing is perfect and nothing is forever. The drives of time and paradox space are still cruel and unrelenting, and you don’t deserve this anyway, and —

And Vriska shifts a little, one of her horns pressing into your shoulder in a way that should be uncomfortable but isn’t. She mumbles something that could have been “Good day, Terezi,” but you can’t hear it because she’s saying it into your shirt. You can feel the warmth of her breath.

You fall asleep like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PRESIDENTIAL ALERT! THE GIRLS ARE MOIRAILS! 
> 
> a short chapter but hey at least they kissed. on the downside terezi's status as unreliable narrator is extra at play here. hmmm it would be a shame if there existed a narrative mechanism that allowed us to see an alternate p–
> 
> also do yall know how hard it is to write cuddling when you have to account for horns? my life is harder than anyone else's


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It would be a shame if your backstory was given inadequate attention,” says Rose; her voice has the full appearance of seriousness, but for the shade of a smile in her words. “Who knows? The axis upon which an epic revolves could lurk in any of its apparently minor elements.” 
> 
> “Real life,” you tell her, “is not one of your tasty lavender fictions about men with funny names.” 
> 
> \- 
> 
> Strilondes (x2) and and crises of faith (also x2).

At first you think no-one notices, and you’re not sure how to feel about it. 

It’s not as if you wanted everyone to pry into. your business, but Vriska’s comment about verging on pale is proven unfairly correct when you mention your moirallegiance to Karkat and he barely spares it a reaction. You begin to suspect that everyone except you knew this was coming, and that nobody feels like it's worth discussing. 

But Rose Lalonde is full of surprises. 

One week out from your midday feelings jam, she says, “I see you and Vriska have entered a pale relationship,” while the two of you are bent over piles of captchalogue codes in the library. 

“I see you’re far more adept at gaging troll romance than your hatchmate!” you answer, “Unless it’s Kanaya who noticed.” 

She stifles a pleased-sounding laugh. “Caught in the act of soliciting a dear friend for information on her ex’s new relationship. All decorum has fallen apart. Whatever shall I do?” 

“She’s told you about everyone, then,” you say, wondering what the fuck _dear friends_ means in the bizarre, vague taxonomies of human relationships. “Us and our drama.” 

You divert your attention from the stacks of cards to sniff at Rose. The usual orange Seer robes - she and Dave seem to live in those things, as if determined to remind everyone of their status as gods. Short gold-hued hair against dark skin; bright eyes and the buzzing sense of unrelenting energy. It would be absurd to claim that the Light aspect had a scent, but you smell it all the same: she and Vriska have the same restlessness in them, the same relentless drive towards an end you yourself can’t make out. 

“No,” she says, “I haven’t heard all about you. But I’d like to. I hope you don’t read this as invasive, but I’d be happy to hear your side of the story if you ever wished to share it.” 

“Let me clarify, Lalonde. I will tell you tales of our dramatic wrigglerhoods, and you will write it down in that massive book of yours. That seems like an excellent use of everyone’s time and privacy!” 

“It would be a shame if your backstory was given inadequate attention,” says Rose; her words have the full appearance of seriousness, but for the shade of a smile in her voice. “Who knows? The axis upon which an epic revolves could lurk in any of its apparently minor elements.” 

“Real life,” you tell her, “is not one of your tasty lavender fictions about men with funny names.” 

“ _Complacency_ was an impressive work for my age,” says Rose placidly. For a long moment, you think this will be it, but she then adds, “Also, I’m killing Dave next time I see him, and it will be Just.” 

“Not Dave’s fault,” you say, and if your voice sounds flat to yourself, you doubt Rose will notice. “Vriska found a copy in a dream bubble.” 

“An excellent grasp of boundaries and privacy,” says Rose, and her voice has turned genuinely cold. “The two of you never cease to impress me.” She’s not fiddling with the codes, either, just looking directly at you. Casually, she adds, “I forgot that you and Dave don’t talk much these days.” 

After humoring her expectant silence for a few moments, you sigh. “You know, Lalonde, I’ve lived with you for six of your human months. Your mind game hoofbeastshit is not as interesting as you think it is. If you’d like me to tell you something, ask me an actual question.” 

“Fine. Why’d you stop talking to Dave?” 

“Does there need to be a reason?” 

“Well, you were fairly close during the game. Kanaya and I –” 

“We cannot all immediately devolve into sloppy makeouts with the squishy human we personally found the most interesting,” you say, and cackle at the sputter of denial that Rose hits you with in response. 

“Putting aside those baseless speculations about my personal life,” says Rose, and, oh my, you’ve struck a nerve. You’ll have to tell Vriska. 

But it doesn’t feel as good as it once would have. 

“Dave misses you,” says Rose. “And he’s too much of an emotionally repressed asshole to ever admit it directly.” 

“As opposed to you, the pinnacle of openness and sensitivity.” 

“You wound me, Terezi. Especially as you are both scrutable and authentic,” she hits back, and _ooh_ , it’s a shame humans don’t do blackrom, and that you have no time for any quadrants but one. 

“As I was saying,” she continues, “there’s six of us here, and he quite liked you. Would you deprive my brother of the chance to explore the intricacies of shitty art with someone?” 

-

You don’t take orders from anyone, particularly not Rose Lalonde. It’s not even as if you’ve been _avoiding_ Dave, just that the two of you haven’t spent much time alone. Or any time. Which is fine, because it wasn’t as if he’d asked. You’re not sure why Rose had bothered to imply it bothered him at all. 

Still, though, one week later, when you find him fiddling with his human slam poetry machine in one of the meteor’s loosely designated common areas, you sit down next to him. “Hey, coolkid,” you say like you would on any day, and the words don’t feel like your own; it feels like you’re playacting a version of yourself that no longer exists. 

“TZ,” he says, acknowledging you with a lazy wave, then gets back to whatever he’s doing. While you’re at a loss for what to say next, though, wondering what to say next, he lifts his head for a second. 

“How’s life playing out?” he asks. “Done any smoochy feelings jams with the scary girlfriend yet? Man, is it actually like in Karkat’s movies? Like, the two of you on a pile of chalk, wreathed in inexplicable pale light, crying about your feelings and preventing each other from committing murder –” 

“I don’t know what a girlfriend is, xenophobe,” you say. Flawless Strider Monologue cut-off skills. A lot easier than over text, because _sometimes_ he stops when you interrupt him. “We have our own words, which I suspect you know.” 

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I’ve only got sappy, weirdly violent movies as reference. Or would they be violent, weirdly sappy movies –” 

“Karkat is very sentimental. It’s a carefully guarded secret.” 

“Can’t be that carefully guarded,” Dave starts to mutter, then pauses. “I forget that you and him were a thing.” 

“Barely a thing, whatever a _thing_ is! We were never in a quadrant.” 

“Yeah, he told me –” Dave starts, and then stops. “Actually, that’s probably private, never mind. Anyway, gotta feel for the guy. Like, I’m imagining getting hit with it. _Sorry I dumped you, but if I hadn’t, we’d all be dying horribly right now._ Can I steal that? If we make this new universe, I’ll need lines that powerful to beat the adoring crowds off.” 

You hate this conversation. Before you can open your mouth to say “I hate this conversation,” Dave is rolling on.

“Did your alternate future self ban you from Strider action, too, by the way? Do I also have universe-ending dating potential? Because it’d be a bummer if only Vantas aliendick had the ability to end all our lives –” 

There is nothing you have ever hated more than this conversation. He must finally notice this in your expression, because he adds, “That was a joke.” 

“If I made it seem,” you start to say, and Dave abruptly smells like panic. 

“Whoa, TZ, this is not Karkat you’re speaking to,” he says. “First off, if I were to throw a bitch fit about this, which I did not, it would have been six months ago, and secondly, this is what we call a federal fucking non-issue. Like, if Karkat wanted to gently weep on you about your cosmically important breakup, that’s his right, but back on Earth we tend to be cool about this shit –” 

“Don’t be an asshole, coolkid,” you say tiredly. “You’re not actually that good at it.” 

Dave folds his arms. The red outline of him is tense now; his posture sucks, you notice, just as much so as Karkat's. “I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. I’m not usually trying to be one, actually, but I’ve been recently and loudly alerted to the frequency at which I succeed anyway.” 

He sounds weirdly unhappy, now, which wasn’t your goal at all. 

“My invariable sweetheart of a sister would suggest this is the product of a horrible disorder, which is called ‘is allowed to talk to people in real life, and people let him, for some reason’ –” 

You’ve lost the thread of this conversation entirely. One more point for Seer of Mind powers! If only to divert the conversation from inane romantic speculations, you blurt out, “Dave, I’m sorry I killed you.” 

He closes his mouth and turns his head towards you; one unreadable shaded face meets another. You and him are equals, you think suddenly, equals in obfuscation, equals in the art of the manufactured self. In the other timeline, did you stay that way indefinitely, fall apart without ever having seen each other in a substantial way? Did your first coin flip of two go undiscussed? In this timeline, at least, you cannot imagine yourself saying even a fraction of what you’ve thought about it. You cannot imagine Dave answering. 

He still isn’t saying anything, so you continue. “Your alternate self. With the coin flip. I was – I was trying to do something, but it doesn’t matter.”

Just at the moment you think Dave will remain silent on the topic forever, and that it’s time for you to leave the room, he says, “Yeah, I guess it did suck.” 

“I just wanted to tell you,” you say, getting up to walk out, but he reaches up to tug at your sleeve. 

“It was months ago, though. I mean – not gonna lie, it would have been nice in the moment to learn that you felt bad about it, or felt – felt anything about it, really.” He pauses for a moment, then swallows, and goes on. “Or when things started out, that would have been good too. But – you have your own thing, and I have my own thing, and everything’s fucking tangled, anyway, like, there’s a fullscale fucking collision course between weird troll baggage and weird human baggage, there’s luggage carousel guts strewn across the room, its weeping widow is gathering up the baggage, nobody’s name or email is written on anything…” 

He stops again. Refocuses. 

“That was a long day, and a lot of stupid bullshit happened in it,” he says at last. “And I’m not – I don’t think I’m mad at you for it. Anymore.” 

“Thanks, Dave,” you say. You do not mean for your voice to sound small. 

“And anyway, I think Karkat would kill me if he knew I’d upset you,” he added, and his voice sounded closer to its usual carefree affectation. “Oh, fuck, that’s the human emotion called chivalry, isn’t it? x2 knight combobob, it keeps happening, never leads to anything good. You definitely didn’t want to hear that.” 

“At least you’re smart enough to know this in hindsight.” 

“But what I meant to say is – seriously, we’re good. Federal fucking non-issue, like I said. Look, if you want to – I’m going down to hang out with Karkat and the Mayor in a minute, do you want to come with?"

You think about it. Sometimes, on this meteor, you wake up and find yourself filled with dread at the prospect of being spoken to or looked at by anyone. At other times, often, it’s anyone-except-Vriska. 

“We’re talking disappointing the Mayor, here,” Dave adds when you’re silent for a moment too long. "Try to remember what's at stake."

You decide today isn’t one of these nights. Or days. Or whatever the fuck they are. 

“Sure,” you say. “Lead the way.”

-

“So if Vriska’s not your girlfriend, what is she?” asks Dave when you’re lying on your back in Can Town, listening to the faint sounds of stacked cans and of Karkat’s whispered conversation with the Mayor. “Are you guys just, like, really cosmic best friends?” 

The sound of a can hitting the floor from across the room, and then a familiar tread stomping over to sit next to the two of you. “Strider, your cultural sensitivity is fucking stunning,” says Karkat. “We literally _just_ watched In Which Trolls Enter A Stable Moirallegiance After A Period Of Mutual Platonic Hatred, Only To Lose The Affection Of Their Respective Matesprits Simultaneously And Destabilize Their Moirallegiance By Pailing Red In A Moment Of Emotional Weakness –” 

“Fuck you, Karkat, I’m being very culturally sensitive. Maybe I’m just being culturally sensitive enough to know that Terezi’s perspective matters. I’m preserving journalistic integrity. TZ, we’re getting fucking multicultural. What’s a moirail, your honor? Girlfriend? Best friend?” 

“God, Strider, you are such a fucking embarrassment,” says Karkat, but it lacks venom. 

You sigh. “Listen to your beloved hatefriend. We are in a specific kind of romantic relationship! A moirail’s a moirail. Human romance sounds like an impractical clusterfuck of feelings you can’t categorize. Far inferior to how we do it.” 

(Later, you’re not even sure if you meant it, and if you didn’t, whether you said it for Karkat’s sake, or for Dave’s, or Vriska’s, or yours.)

Karkat, at least, is pleased. “Terezi, you should hang out here more often. Free me from the inane ramblings of this xenophobic asshole.” 

“You sound so convincing, Karkat,” you grin. “Do you hear that? That’s the sound of me forgetting all of the Troll Nora Ephron movies you two apparently watch together.” 

Dave says something about how it’s not gay if it’s multicultural, which makes no sense to you, but clearly does to Karkat, because he starts shouting things about the stupid, arbitrary rules of being human gay. You tune them out, but you don’t leave, either. 

You don’t know if Dave’s forgiven you, or what it is you were seeking forgiveness for. You’re starting to doubt that it began or ended with him.

-

Vriska’s not in her block that evening. Which is fine! Probably a good thing, anyway, you think back in your own. Can’t go bothering her every night about every thought that crosses your mind.

Who are you kidding, you’re pulling out your palmhusk. 

gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]

GC: H3Y VR1SK4  
GC: YOU 4W4K3?   
AG: I’m actually with Lalonde. She’s a pain in the ass 8ut almost as smart as you sometimes.  
AG: Only ALMOST, though ::::)  
AG: Fussyfangs is also there but she is reading and won’t talk to me. Her loss!!!!!!!!  
AG: Wanna come over?   
GC: NO 1T’S F1N3  
GC: 1 JUST H4D 4 QU3ST1ON  
GC: WH4T DO YOU DO WH3N TH3 TH1NG YOU KNOW YOU W3R3 GOOD 4T  
GC: L1K3 TH3 ON3 TH1NG YOU D3F1N3D YOURS3LF 4ROUND  
GC: 1S 4CTU4LLY SOM3TH1NG YOU K1ND OF H4T3?   
AG: ???  
AG: W8!  
AG: ::::?  
AG: That’s 8etter.   
GC: >:]  
GC: MY QU3ST1ON THOUGH   
AG: Yeah, I was asking you what you were talking a8out!   
GC: 1 T4LK3D TO D4V3 TOD4Y   
AG: Did he say something shitty to you???????? FUCK that!  
AG: Strider’s going down. He won’t even know what hit him, Terezi.  
AG: This is gr8, it’s 8een 8ges since we kicked some ass.   
GC: NO!  
GC: H3 W4S 4CTU4LLY F4R N1C3R TO M3 TH4N 1 D3S3RV3D   
AG: Hey! You helped him during the game, remem8er? You don’t just deserve him 8eing nice, you deserve his unending gratitude!   
GC: VR1SK4 1 K1LL3D H1M  
GC: JUST 4S 4 FUN 3XP3R1M3NT  
GC: TH4T'S NOT SOM3TH1NG YOU JUST G3T OV3R   
AG: Terezi, if it 8othered him, he was 8eing a wriggler!  
AG: Eg8ert died too! Also I 8led to death slowly after getting summarily owned 8y Megido, remem8er?  
AG: If Strider couldn't handle his own altern8 self's death, that's his own fault!   
GC: VR1SK4 NO TH4T'S  
GC: YOU KNOW WH4T N3V3R M1ND   
AG: Wh8t kind of shitty moirail would I 8e if I let you l8ave it at th8t!  
AG: Terezi  
AG: Tereziiiiiiiii!  
AG: Teeeeeeeereeeeeeeeziiiiiii!!!!!!!

It takes you ten minutes to pick your palmhusk back up. You’re objectively aware that this is a stupid move, but the thought of explaining any of this to Vriska turns your stomach. Vriska has regrets, you know this better than anyone, about plenty of the things she should have regrets about. But her identity is not one of them. You can’t imagine her denouncing her class or her aspect or her psychic powers. This self assurance is what drew you to her in the first place. 

But you probably owe her an explanation. 

GC: OK4Y 1'M B4CK 1'M SORRY  
GC: 1T'S JUST TH4T  
GC: FOR TH3 LONG3ST T1M3  
GC: 1 W4S SO PROUD OF TH3 K1ND OF TH1NG 1 PULL3D W1TH D4V3  
GC: 4ND W1TH TH3 4LT3RN4T3 3GB3RT 1 GU3SS TOO  
GC: YOU 4ND 1 US3D TO G3T UP TO TH4T K1ND OF TH1NG 4LL TH3 T1M3, 1’D TR1CK FL4RP3RS 1NTO 4LL TH3S3 1NTR1C4T3 TR4PS  
GC: 4ND 1 W4S SO R3MOV3D FROM 1TS CONS3QU3NC3S TH4T 1 COULD V13W 1T 4S TH1S FUN 3XC1T1NG TH1NG  
GC: TH4T W4S SOM3HOW 1N SOM3 W4Y B3TT3R TH4N 4CTU4LLY K1LL1NG SOM3ON3  
GC: B3C4US3 1F TH3Y W3R3 JUST SM4RT 3NOUGH TH3Y WOULDN'T F4LL FOR 1T SO 1T'S NOT L1K3 1T'S YOUR F4ULT  
GC: 4ND 1T'S V3RY 34SY TO CONV1NC3 YOURS3LF OF TH1NGS L1K3 TH4T WH3N YOU'R3 GOOD 4T WH4T YOU DO!  
GC: BUT 1'V3 R34L1Z3D 1 DON'T KNOW 1F 1 W4NT TO B3 GOOD 4T M1ND G4M3S  
GC: OR 4T L34ST NOT TH3 D34DLY K1ND  
GC: WH1CH 1S ST1LL SC4RY B3CU4S3  
GC: WH4T 3LS3 4M 1 3V3N GOOD 4T?

You wait a few minutes. Then five. Then six. Like a wriggler, you lick your palmhusk every couple of minutes, even though the Trollian alert would have done a fine job of alerting you if she’d messaged back. She’s seen your messages, but your screen remains stubbornly free of cerulean. 

GC: VR1SK4?

This is it, then. This is the part where she figures out all the worth in you trickled out somewhere between when she met you and now, if there was even anything there to begin with. That whatever she’d admired in you had died a long time ago, replaced by an emptiness even you can’t figure out. What does she even need from you if you’ve now admitted that you _and_ whatever smarts you’d had outside of them –

Your palmhusk beeps. 

AG: I’m coming over.   
GC: WH4T NO VR1SK4 1’M F1N3  
GC: L1K3 FOR R34L   
AG: No, you’re o8viously upset!!!!!!!!  
AG: What kind of moirail do you t8ke me for?  
AG: Plus while I w8s t8lking to y8u the f8cking l8vers h8ve c8zied up 8ver Mary8m’s 8ook!  
AG: It’s 8oring as fuck and I’m on my way!!!!!!!!

Only a few minutes later, your door creaks open and slams shut, and then Vriska has thrown herself down next to you with even greater force than usual. You turn your face towards her, but before you can even decide what to say to mend the damage, she is speaking of her own accord. 

“The way I see it, it’s all different levels. Like, does anyone like being who they are, really? Okay, obviously you and I do. We’re great! The _fucking_ greatest. Always have been.” She slams a fist into her palm for emphasis; it resounds across the room, and you wince. 

“But that doesn’t mean - it doesn’t mean we have to like everything! Just because we try to think about new ways to use our skills, it doesn’t make us losers of the Strider variety –” 

“Dave isn’t a loser,” you say tiredly. 

“– and let whatever bothers us about ourselves, or our powers, or our talents stop us from being the best versions of ourselves,” Vriska continues as if you didn’t say anything. “And that’s not to say – I mean, ask me, I know better than anyone! – that you can’t do things with those powers that you end up regretting! I mean, mind control, awesome, don’t get me wrong, comes in really handy, but I also –” 

You think her hands might be shaking, until she twists them together in her lap as she breaks off mid-sentence. “Well, again! The answer to your question is that what you do is – you figure out that the things you’re good at don’t make you inherently evil just because you’ve done things you don’t like with them!” 

Something picks at the back of your head, sometimes you don’t know how to interpret. The rhythm of Vriska’s breaths next to you is harsh and irregular. Instead of touching her, you sit up and turn to her, letting a hand cover cautiously over her shoulder. 

“Vriska,” you start, “is it okay if I –” 

“Sure, whatever,” she says flatly, and then practically throws herself into your hesitant open arms. 

“Vriska,” you say again. 

“Don’t,” she mumbles. 

“We’re –” 

“You were the one who’s upset,” she says, bringing her hands up to take hold of the back of your shirt. Her grip is tight enough that it almost hurts. “This is a fucking – a fucking feelings jam or something, right?” 

“I’m sorry,” you say, and bring a hand up to gently pat her hair. She jerks in response, but then relaxes into the touch; her grip on you loosens a little, but she doesn’t let go of you. 

Worth another attempt. “Vriska, I’m sorry if I –” 

“Terezi, this is already fucking embarrassing,” she whispers. 

“We’re both allowed to be upset by things,” you say, sounding what you think is unreasonably reasonable. You’d not even been _that_ upset, you want to reassure her. These are the kinds of thoughts that cross your pan on a day-to-day basis. But bringing Vriska into contact with this line of thought – you wish a time-traveling John Egbert had been able to leave notes about whatever this was.

You distantly wonder if you will always be doomed to come down on the wrong side of gaging Vriska’s reactions. The one mind you know, and you still don’t know it well enough. 

“I didn’t think of how – you’re not a – you’re right. Being good at things can be applied to any direction,” you say at last. “And we’re going to apply it to winning this stupid game. We deserve that.” 

“Just don’t apologize,” says Vriska petulantly. “You didn’t do anything. I’m not even upset.” 

You don’t answer that. You don’t know if there’s anything to say, or how you’d say it if there was. The room’s air is cold and stale; you miss the multicolored walls of your hive so much that it hurts. Vriska is limp and silent, unresisting as you adjust your grip on her. 

It’s she who breaks the silence, eventually. “Terezi.” 

“Hm?” 

“You stopped touching my hair.” It's said as a neutral observation, not a request. You are not sure she will ever have a request for you.

“My mistake,” you say, and bring your hand back to tangle in it. She does not make a sound in response, but she does lean into your grip. 

Nothing you do for her will ever be enough, nor will it ever be truly needed. You try not to think about this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i time this week's updates to make sure i could do an 8/8 update? o8viously. vriskaphobic of me however that the vriska day update contains boys (i'm sorry) and the girls being sad. also the rose/terezi axis moment gets less cool if i've already done it in a different fic but in my DEFENSE i wrote this one first. o light players and their flirtations with metatext i do love you so
> 
> as a side note the most ooc thing in this chapter is the insinuation that karkat likes troll nora ephron. we all know his taste is worse than that
> 
> side note 3 if you want to hear the only take i have on vriska that matters check out my 8/8 art on [twitter](https://twitter.com/astralAmbiguity/status/1292166583255736320)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Does that hurt?” 
> 
> “Not really,” you say. “Not if I know it’s just a memory.” 
> 
> “You’re bleeding.” Her voice gets smaller still. 
> 
> “Just the memory of blood, then.” 
> 
> -
> 
> End of year 1. Rose tackles the semiotics of penis ouija, while Terezi and Vriska get a blast from the past.

One human year out from the Green Sun, Rose hosts a strategy meeting that is, for once, universally attended bar Gamzee. Even the Mayor is there. Sure, Kanaya splits her attention between listening intently and sketching patterns; and sure, Dave and Karkat are whispering to each other about some movie Karkat likes, but still. Present and accounted for, with the exception of one shitty clown. 

“A null session is the most common kind of doomed session,” Rose is saying. She’s at ease, confident; Light Player Exposition Voice never dies. “On the other hand, a void session…” 

You know it’s important, and you know it’s polite to listen, and you _are_ listening, kind of, but in truth she’s discussed this with you and Vriska before, so you feel justified in tuning her out at points. 

“Jade has Skaia and the planets, right?” says Dave. 

“Yes! A win for God Tier Space powers, they’re a great asset,” says Vriska. She does not add “and I thought Harley was useless! Even I can be wrong sometimes,” nor does she say “time powers are very powerful, too, but I guess someone would rather have movie nights.” This is progress. A year has passed. All of you are recognizable, and yet none of you the same. 

Nothing is perfect, but everything is better than you could have hoped it would be. Maybe this is a lesson in trusting your alternate future self. Karkat is a wriggler, and future selves are great.

While Vriska’s claiming her piece of the Light Player Exposition Stakes, you take a quiet deep breath through your nose with your head turned towards her. You can hear her smile in her voice. She’s wearing a shirt of yours, a red sweater you’d alchemized for when it got cold on the meteor; it’s not her usual look at all, but she’d swiped it from the floor of your block after spending the day on your couch. You can imagine it hanging, overlarge, on her pointy frame. Familiar red still doesn’t overwhelm the scent of Vriska, which still makes you think of the sea, sweeps after you’d last stood on the bow of her ship.

(It had been towards the tail end of your friendship, when a campaign was as likely to end in an argument as in anything else. You’d yelled her about justice and trust, thrown some dice in her face before storming off. A perigee later, you and Aradia had met a faceless man in the woods, and then – well.) 

Here and now, you think Vriska is happy. Even sharing the planning spotlight with Rose is a spotlight, and Rose has now gamely let Vriska take over to explain something about prototyping. When the two of them pause to confer with Kanaya on the status of the human session’s Genesis Frog, you tune in instead to the whispering between Dave and Karkat, which is growing gradually louder. 

“No, idiot, the point is that _he’s_ vacillating pale to black for her, but _she’s_ vacillating red for him, and she’s already got pitch feelings for his auspistice –” 

“Pale to black? Karkat, who the fuck goes pale to black?” 

“It’s been known to happen! Terezi, has it not been known to happen?” 

“It has been known to happen,” you say dutifully. 

In hindsight, you think that might have been what was going on between Karkat and Sollux. Also, on days when you’re a certain kind of annoyed at Vriska… well. You _aren’t_ black for her, but you see how you could be! Or how you could have been, in another time or space. Provided you’re still allowed to stroke her hair. 

This is why romantic introspection is best left to people without a void of _important_ introspection to be swallowed by. Everyone should get cryptic instructions from a dead alternate future self! Does wonders for the sleepless days. 

There’s another scuffle from the other end of the table, then a papery sliding sound, as if an enormous tome of important lore has been yanked across a table for dubious purposes. 

“It’s not that complicated, Dave, for fuck’s sake, just let me draw you a chart –” 

Drawing a chart turns out to involve a lot of close physical contact, raised voices, and attempted joint renditions of Dave’s favorite element of human anatomy. Rose and Vriska are no longer talking about void sessions; instead, Rose has got her face turned towards you and Vriska, and smells unashamedly smug. 

“Tell me, Terezi,” says Rose, “while you were manipulating Dave into various time loops, did you perhaps become familiar with the crudely representational shape of the human penis before you were aware of what it was meant to refer to? Were you perhaps adrift, granted a visual signifier without context or explanation of the signified it represented? The semiotic possibilities are endless. Of course, you certainly weren’t given the context required to really _delve_ into whatever intricate rituals might be taking place here –” 

“Lalonde, every word that comes out of your mouth is fucking incomprehensible,” Vriska groans, dropping her head onto your shoulder in a show of dramatic hopelessness. Being a head taller than you, she has to contort herself impressively to pull this off. 

“Thank you, Vriska, truly,” says Rose, sounding very self-satisfied. “I sometimes find myself suspecting that tackling my brother’s psyche requires more schools of entry-level critical theory than simple psychoanalysis. Speaking of which – Dave, Karkat, are you done?” 

There’s the crash of a falling chair, twin groans, and muffled swearing, almost as if a shouty childhood friend of yours has had his voice muffled by the cherry fabric of a God Tier cape. 

“Strider, I hate you.” 

“Get my cape out of your mouth, Karkat, you’re embarrassing us all.” 

“I once again invite everyone,” says Vriska, “to imagine this timeline, but without me, and then thank alternate future Terezi for her good works.” 

“Oh, dearest Vriska,” says Rose. “In this timeline, but without you, I may be hurtling towards alleged young death, but I imagine I have slightly less of a headache.” 

When Dave and Karkat settle into their chairs, and Rose is given her book back, she smiles brightly at the group. 

“It’s been a year since we set out,” she tells the gathering. “And I know that to the numerical majority of you, this is not a sensible or conventional method of timekeeping, but I hope that you can appreciate that it means something to me. I think we’re on track to succeed.” 

“Of course we are,” says Vriska cheerfully. The unspoken _I’m here, aren’t I_ _?_ is heard by everyone in the room. 

“I would suggest a toast, but the alchemiter is a stubborn mistress which I have yet to conquer,” Rose continues, though she throws Vriska a glance of acknowledgement. “So perhaps next year.” 

Even with Karkat muttering something about human traditions he has no sense of, and about how Rose is right, trolls _are_ the numerical majority, though that goes forgotten often enough, the mood in the room is upbeat. It _has_ been a year, and Rose’s powers light a clear path, and Vriska’s schemes fit together compellingly, and you’ve contributed your fair share of insight for someone who can’t use her powers for shit. Your plan, insofar as you have one, seems sound. 

Maybe all will be well. 

“Also, we’re heading into another dream bubble,” you add in the ensuing murmur of interlocking conversation that always emerges at the end of a meeting. “Smelled it on the horizon before I came down here, we should be on top of it in a few minutes.” 

The meeting winds down soon after that. Finding yourself surrounded by dream lava, as it turns out, tends to detract from strategy talk. 

-

(The first time you’d physically passed through a dream bubble had been nice.

You and Vriska had walked into the common area roughly designated as an eating space, only to be met by sharp cold and the blank vanilla scent of white all around you. For a moment, you were almost scared something was wrong with your nose; the floor was not meant to be this uniformly blank, nor the ceiling this steely gray, or this high.

You turned to Vriska. “Help me out, Serket,” you said. “What the fuck am I smelling?” 

“Help me out, Lalonde, what the fuck am I seeing?” Vriska echoed. And yes, when your senses had adjusted to the eerie quiet blankness of your surroundings, you smelled the orange and cherry shapes of Dave and Rose standing on the other end of the room. 

“Rose’s old house in the winter,” said Dave. “We’ve got dream bubbles. Did you guys not have snow on Alternia? It’s bullshit. Movie bullshit, except, as I learned on Jade’s planet, in the movies it’s not so fucking cold.” 

Rose’s explanation was somewhat more helpful. She did not explain what snowball fights were; you came across that facet of human culture organically, by scooping a hand down into the snow and finding it moldable. This was a discovery that Rose and Dave - and Kanaya and Karkat, having come to investigate the source of the shouting - later had cause to regret. 

“TZ, your aim should not be this good,” Dave had said when the bubble passed. “Also, I think you targeted me disproportionately.” 

“Ignoring for a moment your heartless mockery of my disability,” you answered, “blame the delicious cherry red cape. Easiest to smell! Answered your own question, coolkid, didn’t you?” 

“Terezi, come here, I’m coooooooold,” Vriska whined from across the room, and you obligingly stood up to wrap your arms around her from a standing position, resting your chin on her head. 

“I'm only a step warmer than you, Serket,” you said. “Can’t imagine this is doing much for you.” 

“Oh, fuck off, Terezi,” she said, in the way she had of saying things that meant the opposite of what they sounded like. “Maybe you weren’t gloating well enough, and I had to distract you. Hey, Strider, we kicked all of your asses into next week, and you’re lucky you didn’t know us on Earth.” 

“No arguments there,” said Dave with feeling. “You two are a menace, I didn’t need to get pummeled with snow to know that.” 

“Could we have had an interplanetary exchange?” Karkat asked hopefully from beside Dave. “I’d swap these two for Lalonde and Harley any day.” 

“And that’s your first mistake, young man,” Dave had answered. “Have you _met_ Rose? Hell, have you ever pissed off Jade? Don’t answer that, I know you’ve pissed off Jade.” 

“Your point is made,” said Karkat.) 

There are other memories like it – conversations with versions of Nepeta and Feferi, a walk through your old woods with Vriska. Even in the worse times, when you wake up and find yourself on Eridan’s horrible angel planet, even trapped in unending too-small metal rooms, even haunted by a too-big future, you wonder how you’ve managed to be happy this often. 

Here and now, cheered by the upbeat tone of the one-year meeting, you catch up to Vriska and hook your elbow through hers. “Are we checking out the bubble?” 

Before she can answer, it’s upon you; you smell soap and iridescence, hear the soft _pop_ as you pass through it. The landscape around you shifts fast enough that it makes you dizzy, but when you acclimate to your surroundings, you grin. 

“It’s my forest again,” you say, unnecessarily. 

Vriska’s hand is suddenly tight on your forearm, though; she smells strangely uncertain. “Terezi,” she starts off, and then you know what’s wrong. Everything around you – the pink of the leaves, the thick green stems of the trees – smells far, far too bright, and the air is too hot, and it makes you think of a day long ago, and the worst pain you’ve ever felt.

You’re remembering the forest in daytime. 

“My hive,” you say, because you’re not _sure_ if you can be harmed in the dream bubbles, but you don’t want the Alternian sun to be the way you find out. “I know where it is, come on.” 

Vriska drags her feet in the grass for a moment. “Terezi, I’m not sure –” 

“The bubble’s probably swallowed half the meteor for now,” you tell her impatiently. “Come on, everything’ll be fine if we have a place to hide. I know you hate the decor, but we can’t all fault your outrageous bad taste.'

She doesn’t answer, but you smell an unhappiness from her that you don’t fully understand until you’re halfway up the ladder to your hive and you’re starting to realize your eyes hurt. Not at all in the way they had when she’d actually blinded you – just a faint aftereffect, a recreation of memory. But the time you’ve closed the door of your hive, you’re feeling something wet trickle down your cheeks, and the only thing you smell on what should have been your delicious multicolored walls is neat rows of red up and down blank gray. 

“Terezi.” Vriska’s voice is faint. “This is –”

“Yeah,” you say, and don’t know how to sound when you say it. “This is the day.” 

In the real-life setting of this memory, Vriska is in her hive, having picked herself up off the floor, initiated a revenge plan in the course of moments, and found time to send you a series of gloating messages, all while somehow avoiding bleeding to death. 

The Vriska of the present moment can hardly look at you. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, because you don’t know what else there is. “You were right, maybe we shouldn’t have – I should have realized what this memory would be –” 

“Why are you apologizing to _me_?” she asks quietly. “What the fuck are you – oh my god, does that hurt?” 

“Not really. Not if I know it’s just a memory.” 

“You’re bleeding.” Her voice gets smaller still. 

“Just the memory of blood, then.” You wipe it from your face with a sleeve. There’s another long silence.

“I did this to you. I thought I was – I thought I was being really _fucking_ clever.” She strides across the room, away from you; it sounds to you then as if a pile of heavy law books has just been kicked over. 

“We should sit down,” you say. “Vriska –” 

She’s marched over to your computer and pulled up Trollian. “I thought so,” she says furiously; her voice drips with disgust. “God, I forgot I messaged you about it, too. Holy fuck. Oh my god, I was so awful, what the fuck.” She starts to laugh, a high and cracked sound. “Oh my god, Terezi, paradox space hates me personally.” 

You pull her away from the computer, and down to the most spur-of-the-moment pile you’ve ever assembled. “Vriska, sit down,” you say, and you know the moment you do that your voice is too soft, too close to something like pity, because she gives a full-body shudder in response. 

You know that signal well enough to let go of her without being told. It always comes back to this: you and her and the giant spider several floors below. Everything the two of you had done, perfectly legal; you, convincing yourself that it was just. She never cried. She never looked at you.

(There are nights when you don’t know what to do and never manage to figure it out. Nights in which pale is good but not good enough, nights in which you ache with the need to show her kindness that she won’t accept. 

She snaps at you once for saying her voice too softly; when she sees you wince in response, she apologizes, and apologizes and apologizes. 

“I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry,” she’d mumbled, holding onto you tightly enough that it hurts. “Swear to fuck, I don’t know why I did that, and don’t pull a Lalonde and tell me why, because it doesn’t matter, I just won’t do it again.” 

“Hey, I hate feeling talked down to just as much as you do,” you’d said, which was almost entirely the truth; the missing piece was that every time Vriska said your name this softly, you had to stop yourself from crying. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Vriska, I’m sorry.” 

From here on out, you’d avoided a certain tone of voice with her, tried to ascertain how she felt about physical touch when she seemed upset. She doesn’t tend to tell you directly when she is, and you know that’s not how moirails should work, but fuck it, you’ve known each other long enough to read each other well. You think it works.) 

You don’t know if it’ll work this time. She’s got her back against the wall, her feet pressed into the floor, and she’s shaking all over with an energy that frightens you. Her scent has a strange faintness to it, as if she’s trying to disappear. 

The silence stretches on. You think you can feel the bits of your memory-blood that have dried on your face where you failed to wipe it all off. The loud scent of the chalk on your wall swims around you and repeats: _H34DS, H34DS, H34DS._ Do you even have a memory of doing that? You _do_ remember the dream bubble where a robot Aradia explained something to you about a gene sequence. You think it might have had to do with the god on the green moon, the one you’d weaponized against Vriska with an easy satisfaction. 

You remember how he’d talked about her when you were wrigglers, how you’d been angry enough at her then to think it was funny. You remember that, in the here and now, Vriska never mentions him.

If this dream bubble had been Vriska’s hive, if the blood it had manifested for you had run cerulean across her face –

Before you can feel sick in silence for too long, Vriska unclenches her hands a bit. “I have something to tell you,” she says. 

“Tell me.” 

“It’s gonna piss you off.” 

“You don’t know that,” you say, which is not a guarantee you should ever give her; even as you say it, you regret it. Vriska’s people skills aren’t always stellar, but she does know how _you_ work, for the most part.

She pauses for a long time, stretching out her legs. You can hear the clack of dice, and you know she’s fiddling with the ones she keeps in her pockets. At last, she says, “I told Gamzee to leave you alone.” 

“I… I know? Vriska, I was there.” 

“No! No, don’t be stupid, Terezi, I meant later. I mean the week after that happened, I went and I looked around for him and I put the fear of Vriska Serket into him.” 

You feel very, very cold. “Did you _hurt_ him? Vriska, Karkat will –” 

“Jesus, no, just threw the Octet around some, made some threats – you’ve seen the size of him, Terezi – I mean, I could have if I tried, but –” 

“You didn’t invite me.” 

“I knew you wouldn’t have approved!” 

“You didn’t _need_ to do that!” 

“Told you it’d piss you off. Didn’t know why it would, but knew it would.” 

“Well, don’t count this one as a never-bet-against-Vriska moment, because that’s pretty _fucking_ obvious!” Your voice sounds almost normal; it’s quite impressive, really. “Can you maybe explain your motive here, aside from a shortage of stupid heroic shit to take credit for?” 

“Because he was following you around, and you didn’t even tell me, how about that? Because he could have hurt you before you fought back, and if neither of us had been quick enough – and because he could still hurt all of us, and because – fuck, Terezi, I don’t even get why I need to be justifying this to you, he’s not some harmless boy-skylark –” (her voice trips over the FLARP class, hitching slightly) “– he’s a murderer, he’s a liability, we’re protecting the timeline –” 

“Then protect the timeline!” you snap. “Do whatever you want for the timeline, but don’t try to protect _me,_ I don’t need you to! I thought we were moirails because you wanted to be, but you won’t tell me shit, so I have to assume it’s another thing you’re doing for the sake of the timeline –” 

There’s a sudden clatter against your hive’s floor, so sharp it hurts your ears; Vriska has thrown the dice to the ground. “Fuck you!” she says vehemently. “Fuck you, Terezi, you asshole, I’m not doing it for the timeline! I’m paledating you because I’m _fucking_ pale for you, genius, and I yelled at Gamzee because _I don’t want you to die!_ ” 

You blink. 

“I’m not dying, Vriska.” 

“Really?” she asks, and her cheeks are flushed cerulean, and for a moment you think you smell it around her eyes, too, but then she rubs at them and the moment’s gone. “Really, Terezi? Because that stupid scarf was written _in your blood_. Because your other self brought me back for the express fucking purpose of preventing that. Because in the other universe, I died, and it was _just_ , and I’m not –” (her voice wobbles; your head is white noise) “– I’m not even disputing that, because…” 

She trails off. 

“I think these dream bubbles are torturing me,” she says, instead of continuing her previous thought. “Fuck them, fuck them and fuck this one in particular – I thought I was being so _smart_ and _c_ _alculating_ , just like _you,_ finally good enough to match you, and I fucking blinded you, and then I thought I was being a hero and I got you killed by Jack, and I was stupid and stubborn enough to not take your word for it, so you had no choice but to kill me, and _that_ got you killed, too! Terezi, after all of that, don’t you think I’d be figuring out how to make up for it?” 

She breathes in; breathes out. Cautiously, you hover a hand over her shoulder, and she nods, so small you can barely smell the movement. She’s not shaking as much anymore, but she’s folded in on herself so tight, it feels as if she’ll snap in two at any moment. 

There’s a lot you can say as you move closer to her. What you choose to say, quietly, is, “I did have a choice. About killing you, I had a choice, I just didn’t know it at the time. And this was it.” 

“You haven’t met –” Vriska starts, and then stops again. There’s clearly something she’s not telling you, but you and she can read each other, and you know not to press. “It doesn’t matter. You were justified in killing me in the other timeline. Fucking God Tier mechanics said so, can’t argue with that shit.” She laughs, high and jagged and so, so unfairly broken. 

“Hey, Vriska,” you say quietly. “Look at me.” Your hands move up to cup her face, and you turn it towards yours. 

She makes a face at you. 

“I don’t think it would have been just. How do God Tier mechanics work? There’s a clock, isn't there? Vriska, how’s a clock any better than His Honorable Tyranny and some clowns and a legislacerator to put on a show of listing off crimes?” You swallow slightly. “There’s this creature the humans call a _defense attorney_ , which sounds like a made-up word, but apparently its purpose is to argue for why the accused _shouldn’t_ get punished.” 

“Stupid word,” says Vriska, smiling slightly. "Stupid concept, humans are babies –" 

“Stupid word! But – but who would have been your defense legislacerator, Vriska? Who the fuck gives a cosmic force we know nothing about the authority to dispense justice? What if – what if Alternia’s gone, and execution’s not the only option anymore?” 

Your whole chest is tight; this still hurts to talk about, as if you’re pulling yourself even further into pieces, as if every outside force you once defined yourself around is crumbling to dust and leaving you even emptier than you were. But for her, you press on. “Vriska, you’re not you if you’re not arguing with Paradox Space.” 

There is no truth, no definitions; nothing left, only emptiness. One day, maybe, you’ll get smart enough to turn that into a good thing. 

“You’re the one who’s always telling me to forget the other timeline,” you say when she’s been silent too long. 

Vriska takes a deep breath. Then her hand moves up to run a finger across your cheek, her thumb stopping for a moment where a patch of blood has dried; then up further, until it rests at the very corner of your right eye, where the skin is sensitive and faintly scarred. You think she’s looking directly into where your eyes were. 

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Okay, forget the other timeline. But how am I supposed to forget this one?” 

“Maybe you don’t,” you say. There’s a lot you’re feeling: touched, maybe, but irritated, too. “But maybe you trust me when I tell you I’m not angry about it. There’s – Vriska, lots of things can be true at once.” 

She makes a face at you, and you can tell she’s about to laugh at you for the abstractness, so you keep talking. 

“Is it true that you shouldn’t make people stare into the sun until they go blind? Probably, yes,” you say, and try not to feel bad when she flinches. “But it’s also true that you shouldn’t manipulate asshole gods into blowing up your best friend’s arm and eye.” 

“But I God Tiered,” Vriska says miserably. “So even that’s undone. Even if we were even once, we aren’t anymore.” 

There’s a part of you that wants to agree. It’s not like you’ve ever thought about it before – the fact that you were marked by her forever, that she was integrated into your identity, whereas she’d shaken off the past with ease from the moment she was reborn on the Battlefield. Even in the days when you were staunchly not talking to her, you had defined yourself with pride by a thing she’d given you. 

But that is not the point. Not right now. 

“Listen to me. Really listen to me. The way I perceive the world, waking up on Prospit, and... my lusus – I wouldn’t change it. Any of it. This isn’t a loss for me, and – and I’m not angry at you for it, because it’s also – this is also me, all right? It’s me, and I like that.” (Saying _I like being me_ is a stretch these days.) “This is bigger than our whole revenge cycle bullshit. All of us are. Okay? You're a god now, and so's Aradia, and I'm _not_ a god but blind prophet's good, too.” If you put it in these terms, something archetypal, important-sounding, you hope she might understand. 

“Okay,” she says. “I don’t know if I get it, but – but I’m gonna try.” 

And then at last you’re pulling her forward to rest her sharp chin on your shoulder. She folds, losing bodily integrity in the way you’re becoming familiar with. The closest thing she has to vulnerability.

“Remember,” you add. “Dead me had the chance to change anything. Anything at all! And she changed _this_.” 

“Okay,” she repeats, even quieter. Slowly, you maneuver the two of you to lie back on the floor, your back against it with her resting on top of you. Very faintly, you can smell the pink of the treetops outside the window, hear them swaying in the faint breeze. For a moment, you miss this hive so badly it hurts. Minutes trickle away with just the sound of the leaves and her breathing. 

When she breaks the silence, she says, “Then you can’t get angry at me about – you can’t get mad when I yell at dumbshit clowns. Or when I look out for you in whatever other ways become important.” 

You sigh. Your skin crawls, for a moment, with the shame of being thought of as weak, but for Vriska’s sake, you try to think clearly. Whatever else you are, you are being thought of as important, too, and importance is all she's ever wanted. For now, maybe it’s okay to take that as enough. 

“Fine, Serket,” you say, and soften the ambivalence in your voice by reaching down to squeeze her hand. “Just ask me first. Don’t go over my head! Promise me.” Please.

“Sure,” she says, “I promise I will include you in all future clown threatening.” And you don’t know if it means anything, because once she promised you that the two of you would only kill people who deserved it. But you have to believe it’s different. Or maybe you just have to believe that this time, you're asking her to make a promise she can keep.

“You’re not gonna regret it, Terezi,” she adds, then, so quietly that you can barely hear her. It’s not a question, but you think it might mean one. “Bringing me back. I told you once. Best decision you’ve ever been forced to make –” 

“I am not going to regret it,” you say firmly, and lean down to kiss her forehead. Then she quiets, squeezing your hand in turn. And then silence falls, a comfortable sort; just the two of you, and a dream bubble, and a meteor hurtling through the Furthest Ring, and the sound of cotton candy leaves stirring in a dead planet’s wind.

**END OF ACT ONE.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know why every davekat writer ever hasn't tackled retcon timeline penis ouija yet. if i were in charge of davekat it would be my entrance exam for everyone else. "you want to write for this ship? write me some retcon timeline penis ouija."
> 
> rose throwing around more intro to lit theory bullshit is foreshadowing for her getting along with dirk, to the detriment of everyone else. 'detriment' can be read as epilogues-scale bullshit or simply as having to hear them ruin a nice family gathering with this nonsense. (somewhere in me there's an english department au of homestuck starring rose and dirk.) 
> 
> the world may have ended before "you construct intricate rituals" briefly became a meme, but rose knows the phrase anyway because she's ahead of her time. what is penis ouija if not THE intricate ritual to end all intricate rituals
> 
> a complete character arc for terezi pyrope must always involve the realization that, on a pan-universal scale, all cops are bastards. you can't change my mind. see also: her pesterquest route, which is very very good. 
> 
> we're nearly halfway through! chapter updates might slow down slightly as i start classes again.


	7. INTERMISSION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The past is never dead. It's not even past." 
> 
> \- Troll William Faulkner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for what could be read as mild suicide ideation

Your name is Vriska Serket. 

You are these things: 1) alive; 2) awake; 3) slightly bleary-eyed, because you and Terezi have fallen asleep on your couch again. 

It’s only natural. Between all the irons that the two of you are accumulating in various fires, it’s not like sleeping at normal times is ever an option the two of you choose to pursue. And you’d never ask her to leave – if you thought she’d move in with you, you’d ask in an instant. But you’re an inarguably awesome moirail who appreciates Terezi’s occasional need for alone time. And if the two of you end up sleeping over in each other’s rooms once a week, well, it’s a free meteor. 

You’re considering waking her up to ask if she wants to move to the recuperacoon when you realize that the floor of your block has been replaced by an expanse of dark rock poking from searing red blood. 

Pulse and Haze or some shit, you think. Karkat’s planet. Sgrub must have really had it out for the guy, flaunting his mutation to anyone who cared to look. Then again, maybe he had it coming – the blood shit was really the worst-kept secret of all time. Entry-level shit. If you want a secret kept, Karkat, don’t make a fucking production out of keeping it a secret. 

This is not advice you need, not anymore. You’re an open book, unless it comes to the clever manipul8tion of the now-exclusively-deserving. 

In sleep, Terezi is still; the soft roundness of her cheek is pressed against your chest. She breathes with a steady sound, snoring softly, just like she had when you were kids. When she’s not standing up, (raising her voice, brandishing her cane, moving through rooms in a way that would part crowds if there were crowds here), you find yourself thinking, not for the first time, that she looks weirdly small. 

Careful not to wake her, you maneuver yourself off the couch; the stone path holds beneath you. ( _Ugh,_ Vantas had it rough. A stupid planet for a stupid troll.) Your shoes are under the couch, where the path has caught them; your jacket is stranded on the other end of the room, so you borrow another sweater of Terezi’s. It’s teal, this time, with her sign across the front; you are glad it’s daytime. This kind of old married diamonds bullshit cannot live to see the light of night. 

But nobody is watching, and you intend to be back before she’s up, and, anyway, being nice to your moirail in stupid corny ways isn’t a fucking _crime_. So before you leave the room, you drape a blanket over her curled-up form. 

Pulse and Haze carries on, depressing as ever. You think Terezi’s planet had been prettier than this; you hazily recall that she and Karkat spent a lot of the session hanging out between the two. It’s not a fun thought; looking around, you wonder if one of these barren rocks should bear a commemorative Sloppy Pyrope-Vantas Makeouts plaque. Then you make a face and keep walking. 

You are on a mission tonight, and the meteor has not physically passed a dream bubble since the horrible ones from last week, the one with Terezi’s hive and the – and the other one. The moment for reconnaissance is now. Any other time, you’d invite Terezi; but not tonight. 

When you’ve walked far enough into the bowels of the meteor that nobody will hear you besides a potential unfortunate clown, you stop and put your hands on your hips. “MEGIDO!” you yell, and your voice echoes through hallways that can’t decide if they’re there or not in the presence of the dream bubble. “Megiiiiiiiido.” 

She doesn’t appear. She did this last time, too; kept you in suspense. You turn a corner, walk through a door, and smile a little as the familiar salt breeze of LOMAT washes over you. 

And there she is. 

“It’s funny,” says Aradia, sitting cross-legged on one of LOMAT’s pink-hued stone outcroppings. “The Furthest Ring cannot be contained by size, and here you are, convinced you can find me by yelling loud enough.” 

“I _am_ always gonna find you, if I really need to. Remember, allllllll the luck.” 

Aradia smiles. “If that’s what you want to believe! Or maybe I’m just good at being in the right place at the right…” 

“Megido, pausing significantly every time you say the word _time_ is not as funny as you think it is.” 

“...Time.” Her eyes are so _bright_ ; something in you hurts when you meet them. They’re too much like who she was all those sweeps ago, before everything went to shit. To avoid thinking about it, because, seriously, fuck that, you say, “I told you it wasn’t funny. I take it all back. Strider is the best Time player.” 

“I like Dave, he’s funny.” Aradia pats the area of ground next to her invitingly. “There’s a lot of him here. I try to cheer them up when I come across them.” 

“Have you met the one Terezi killed?” you ask. “If she can know he’s doing okay, maybe she’d mope less about him.” You’re not sure if Terezi still thinks about him, but you wouldn’t put it past her. If you’ve learned one thing about your moirail over the course of this trip, is that she never _really_ stops thinking about _anything._

Which makes her _am I a good person_ quandaries pretty fucking stupid, you sometimes think uncharitably. A person who’s done actually bad shit couldn’t survive an interuniverse trip’s worth of marinating in all of their misdeeds. The nightmares alone – hypothetically speaking, of course – 

But fuck it, hypotheticals are her thing, not yours. 

“I’ve definitely spoken to that Dave,” says Aradia. “I know he was okay back then. I don’t know where he is now.” She looks out onto the soft sunlit waters of your former land’s oceans. A strand of hair falls down to her forehead as she turns her head. Aradia has always been an ageless sort of pretty, but here and now, backlit by the glow of the Furthest Ring, it’s something different entirely. 

You want to ask her how much time has passed for her, and if she still hates you somewhere under the cheery death-fangirl look. You don’t. 

“Ghosts are different. You can’t imagine it if you haven’t been one,” Aradia says thoughtfully. 

You look away from her. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t look so unhappy!” Aradia reaches over to pat your hand. “Everything that happened had to happen to result in the present moment. Had to happen twice, actually.” 

She grins at you. Her teeth gleam. Somewhere above you there’s a rumble, and the Furthest Ring lights up with cracks. 

“He’s at it again, huh.” You stare at where, apparently, reality itself is at risk of being ripped apart, and your palms itch. “Double death must be a bitch.” 

“Yes,” says Aradia. “But I wouldn’t mourn for these ghosts in the same way you mourn for the living. Like I said – it’s _different_. You’re alive, Vriska, and you’ve only ever been alive, so from your point of view the preservation of consciousness is a gift. But you have to understand that eternity is a very long time if you don’t know how to move on from something! You’ll get it when you meet our ancestors.” 

Your pusher spikes, and you wonder if Aradia _knows_ what you’ve come to ask. “But defeating him still _matters_ , right? Like, it’d be a bummer if I went up against the Lord of Time and all I ended up saving was a bunch of fucking ghosts.” 

Aradia’s smile shifts, and now she’s looking at you like she’s in on something you don’t know yet. This is the first time you've mentioned your half-formed plan to anyone, and she doesn't mention the fact. “Oh, yes,” she says, “defeating Lord English is vital to the preservation of material reality. Immaterial reality, too, but you knew that. Was that your only question?” 

“No.” You swallow. “No, that wasn’t it.”

The sea stirs below you, waves crashing against pink rock. Leaves rustle above you. Aradia’s eyes are wide as they watch you expectantly. 

“If I wanted to find someone in the dream bubbles,” you say when you find your voice, “or if I want to avoid them – how do I do either one of these things? Like, if I want to – if there’s an encounter I’d rather not have again –” 

Aradia’s enthusiasm in the face of a riddle wavers for just a moment, and you wish it would disappear _properly_ , wish she had the capacity to be angry at you again. In the two times that you’ve spoken to her in these bubbles, it has been a bizarre reversal of how she made you feel when she was a ghost, how you’d thought you would shake apart from the need to be recognized. Now she looks you in the eyes and smiles, speaks to you in something other than a monotone, but her unfailing kindness sometimes feels like as much of a dismissal as her previous self’s apathy. 

_You beat me to death once,_ you want to yell at her. You want to grab her shoulders, hit her hard enough that she hits you back. _Try again! Doesn’t it make you mad that I came back?_

But you don’t touch her, and she doesn’t raise her voice. She only says, sounding somewhat uncertain, “If you’re trying to avoid Tavros,” and you shake your head. 

“Tavros is fine! I can take on a hundred Tavroses, fuck it, I’ve got a plan to fix that anyway,” you say, all in one breath. 

She looks at you with expectant curiosity. If you matter to her still, in any way, you wonder if you mean as much to her as any fascinating, inexplicable cosmic disaster. 

You sigh. “It’s Terezi.” 

Aradia furrows her brows, looks down at the sign on your sweater. “Terezi. You guys are pale in this timeline, right?” 

“Megido, I’m in the Alpha timeline! I know you’ve seen a lot of bullshit timelines, but _try_ to keep up with the one that _matters_ ,” you say, because what you want to say is _hold on, what are we in the others?_

(Pitch, probably. Or nothing. Or dead.) 

Aradia is unfazed by the insult, as you knew she would be. “Not the first Alpha timeline, though. Plus, to borrow a word from a friend –” (she wrinkles her nose) “– or, well, sort of a friend – that line of thought is quite problematic anyway! Who decides what’s important, after all? Maybe it's all important.” 

You feel a bit sick, enough so that it distracts you from saying _l_ _iterally the cosmic forces of predestination that I thought we were all servants to, you used to be all about this shit, who are you and what have you done with Aradia ‘We’re All D00med’ Megido, also timelines can't all be important, otherwise they wouldn't be fucking doomed, genius._ Instead, you say, “Fuck. You’ve met us – them – in the other one.” 

“I don’t hang around anywhere for too long,” says Aradia, as if that’s an answer. “But yes, I’ve met them. The you who died in that timeline was quite happy in the end, you know. Or _will_ be, rather, from a narrative standpoint. And don’t ask me what that means, because I don’t know!” 

Her eyes are huge and starry, and when she says, _I don’t know_ , her smile is enormous. There is deep red coming into her eyes, you realize. You don’t know by how much, but she is definitely older than you, and she will only ever get older. 

It’s a good thing you’re dying Heroic one day, one way or another. _Eternity is a long time_ , she’d told you. You’re suddenly not sure you’d be able to handle her relationship with it. 

She moves closer to you on the rock, and looks at you expectantly. “Tell me about Terezi,” she says, as if she’s your fucking moirail or something, but your _actual_ moirail can never hear about this, and so you tell her.

-

Days in the past (exactly eight, one day before Terezi bleeds from the eyes in a memory of her hive on the worst day of your life), the dream bubble swallows you while you’re up on the observation deck. 

The six of you have taken to looking out for dream bubbles when you can. It’s not a perfect schedule, as schedules go, but it helps to have forewarning. If you and Terezi take a disproportionate number of shifts, lying on the deck and watching (or smelling) the black expanse around you, that’s fine by you. Somebody’s got to step up to the plate, make an example, carry the team on their back. 

(Somebody’s got to watch Terezi’s small, toothy smile, the one you don’t think she knows she breaks into when it happens, as she takes a measured intake of breath and tells you the destruction of reality smells beautiful tonight.) 

She’s not here today, though. She’s got those days; she’ll stay in her respiteblock, curled up in her old dragon cape, and read an old lawbook or some shit, even though you think she doesn’t even like reading them anymore. You tried bugging her on those days precisely twice; each time, it didn’t go well, and each time left you feeling furiously incompetent. 

She warns you, now; your palmhusk bears a text from this morning that says ST4Y1NG 1N FOR A WH1L3, 1’LL S33 YOU 1N 4 F3W HOURS >:]. 

Which is fine. It all works great. 

So it’s just you and the Furthest Ring and whatever’s in the dream bubble, which, well. Unless it’s your hive (your hive was fine, just too big, and boring when you were on your own, and seriously, you could have stood to pick up those D4s every so often –), you think you’re ready for anything. 

When you’re hit with the misty green sky of the Land of Thought and Flow, you don’t take it as the warning sign that it is. You don’t feel much like moving today; staying in a lying position and watching the unfamiliar synapse-sky move above you feels like enough. 

Then a familiar cane lands squarely to point at your chest, far more painfully than you’re used to. 

“‘Rezi, don’t _do_ that,” you say, but excitement to see her bleeds into your voice, which was supposed to be projecting annoyance. It’s only when you twist to look at her that you see a few things in order: that she’s wearing her old Redglare uniform; that it’s splattered with blood (her own teal, and Karkat’s unnatural red, the colors of the uniform itself); and that she looks coldly furious, in a way you haven’t seen Terezi look in a very long time. 

For a horrible, pusher-stopping moment you think it’s _your_ Terezi, that something has happened and you weren’t there; then you notice, at last, that her eyes are a bright, blank white, and that your Terezi would have no reason to wear the FLARP costume. 

“Terezi,” you say quietly, because you don’t know what else to say.” 

She bends over to lean her face in close to yours, face impassive, and take what you realize must be a deep sniff of your eyes. Then she moves back, and smiles grimly. 

“You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you.” She is just as quiet as you are, but her voice sounds _vicious_ in a way you’ve never heard it. “You’re alive, right? So it has to be you. I thought your timeline would have faded away, but – did you kill him, Vriska, in the end? Was it worth it?” 

She laughs, and it’s not a nice laugh. You wonder if this is what she would have sounded if, before she blew your eye out, the two of you had spoken face to face. But no. You’d reread those messages a thousand times over, and each time, you had no doubts as to how she’d have sounded. Confident, calm, a little bit amused. A dispatcher of justice, one who knows exactly which way the cards are stacked. 

You’re not sure this one does. Her face is not animated in the way you remember Terezi’s being when she was angry at you, nor is as still as it goes when she’s unhappy. Instead, it’s twisted up into something ugly, as if maintaining stillness through distortion. Her lips wobble; her hand shakes. 

“I’m not sure you’ve got the right Vriska,” you say quietly. 

“Objection!” The courtblock roleplay sounds wrong in her mouth, playacting a time you both have left behind. “There were only two timelines left. There’s only one Vriska alive in Paradox Space, because a better me fucking _stabbed_ the other one.” 

Something clicks. “You’re – when I was going to go fight Jack. You’re the one who didn’t kill me.” 

“As quick on the uptake as ever! Thank you for rubbing it in, Serket.” 

“I didn’t think – I didn’t think there’d _be_ one of you. I mean – I thought, in every timeline, you’d have killed me.” You hate how hesitant you sound, but you guess your only witness is a dead girl who hates you. Maybe it’s therapeutic for her, seeing you pathetic. You wonder if you should offer her a free punch; wonder if ghosts can kill the living. 

“No,” Terezi sighs, and she sounds less angry all of a sudden, just tired. “No, you wouldn’t have guessed. If our roles were reversed, I’m sure you’d perform admirably.” 

_I couldn’t kill you_ , you don’t say. _Fuck, Terezi, I don’t know if I ever could. Only one of us has ever killed to save a timeline. I killed for Mom, or for revenge, or because a man on the moon told me to_. 

As ever, she is better than you. But if she wants to finish the job, you can’t let her. 

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I’m really fucking sorry –” 

Her sword is at your throat. It feels real enough, though you’re still not sure if it can hurt you. You remember the Terezi below you, inside the meteor’s buildings, and find your pusher beating too fast. 

“Yes,” Terezi says above you. “You’re always sorry, aren’t you?” 

“Okay,” you say, and your voice wobbles. “Terezi, listen to me. I’m not from your timeline. There’s a – there’s a third timeline now. Time travel bullshit happened, don’t ask me to explain – the, the other you, the one that killed me, she ended up sending Egbert to stop her doing it, knocked me out instead so I wouldn’t fight Jack, which – which I shouldn’t have done, Terezi, I’m sorry, I was trying to – trying to – I know my death was Just, ‘cause I died in that timeline, but apparently I can’t die, because they need me, and I don’t _fucking_ know what for sometimes, but they need me, _she_ needs me, or she thinks she does –” 

There’s definitely tears streaming down your face, and your voice can’t stay steady no matter how much you force it to, and you hate it, and at this point you’re just muttering incoherent garbage that she can’t make out, but however pathetic you’re being seems to work. The other Terezi lowers her sword, and you try not to regret it. 

“Idiot,” she says quietly. “Even if I could kill you, do you really think I would? You think that would make anything better?” 

You look up at her from where you’re sprawled on the ground. Her face is flat, unreadable. “It might make things better for you,” you offer weakly. 

“You suck at self-advocacy! I humbly beg you to never act as your own legal representative.” She sighs; sheathes her sword; crosses her arms. 

“I couldn’t kill you when it mattered, Vriska. I knew I was dooming a timeline, but I aimed my sword at your back and couldn’t _fucking_ bear to go through with it. And as a price for that, I watched Karkat and Sollux and Kanaya die in front of me.” She brandishes the teal sleeve on which Karkat’s blood has dried, an inverse of the scarf you know she still carries around with her. 

“I replayed it in my head! Often! I wandered around and thought about killing you. But that wouldn’t change anything, you know. I’d just be trying to absolve myself of what I’d already wrought.” She smiles. “Can’t change the past, Vriska. You never seemed to get that.” 

“I’m sorry,” you say again, hand sneaking up to rub at your eyes. 

“It’s not your fault, is it?” She shrugs, a small and defeated movement. “You were just being yourself. I was the only defective one.” 

That stings. “I’m not like that anymore.” 

“For the other me’s sake, I hope so.” There’s a note in her voice for a moment that you can’t read. “You said both of you are alive?” 

“I got knocked out before I could fight Jack. Between Egbert and Megido, everyone’s getting a piece of the Serket punching bag. Offer stands for you, if you’re even corporeal.” 

“Never mind corporeal, I’m smart enough to know I only _think_ that would make me feel better,” says the other Terezi, sighing. “Tempting, though. And what happened to the me that killed her?” 

“We don’t know. She died, in the end, but not before saving the timeline.” 

“Which involved bringing you back.” 

“Yes.” In an even smaller voice, without knowing why you’re saying it, you add, “She and I are moirails now.” 

“ _Moirails_.” She says the word with such venom that you nearly miss the trickle of translucent teal forming in the corner of a glowing white eye. You blink, and her gloved hand has mechanically swiped it away, fast enough that you can’t be sure it was ever really there.

You think she’s going to insult her other self’s relationship choices, shout at you some more, change her mind about hitting you. Instead, she fixes you with an appraising look (you wonder if her ghost self is blind, but don’t ask) and sighs. 

“Don’t fuck it up,” she says at last, and turns to walk away. 

When you whisper, “Don’t you think I’m trying?”, it’s to empty air. 

You don’t want to bother Terezi, and don’t trust yourself to be around her without some kind of horrible sequel to the display you put on for her dead self. Instead you find an empty room in the meteor and start methodically throwing the contents of your sylladex at the wall one by one, in the hopes that breaking something will make your hands stop shaking. 

Kanaya finds you ten minutes in in. 

“Are you all right, Vriska?” she asks, and you _hate_ her, hate her measured tone, hate that she hates you, hates that the other you whom Terezi didn’t kill got her killed, too. 

So you say, “None of your business, Fussyfangs. Not my moirail anymore, are you?” 

“That's a stunning observation. Should I fetch yours?” 

She doesn’t insult you as you’d hoped she would, so you have to do it for her. These assholes _always_ make you do all the work. “Bet it’s the luckiest fucking break you ever got,” you say. _Mistress and Commander_ hits the wall with a flat thud and the flutter of folding pages. “Bet you told Lalonde all about how fucked up I was.” 

“If you’re aiming to antagonize me, it won’t work.” She’s always so _fucking_ calm. “I know you’re better than this.” 

“What the fuck do you know about these days?” A handful of D4s hits the wall with a succession of earsplitting clicks. “What the fuck do you know about better?” A magic eight ball smashes with a sound you hadn’t realized you’ve missed; some of its blue liquid splashes across the pages of the novel. Maybe you should start alchemizing them for ghost-related emergencies. “What the fuck do you know about _me_ , Kanaya?” 

“Not enough, probably. I’m messaging Terezi.” 

“ _Don’t!_ ” 

You’re lunging towards her and grabbing for Kanaya’s palmhusk within moments. “Don’t, Kanaya, don’t, I’ll tell her myself, just don’t tell her you found me like this, _please_ –” 

Her eyebrows shoot up. She’s watching you uncertainly; even though it’s not the moment at all, you notice her green lipstick is flawless. She was always better at all that shit than you, you remember. Makeup. Moirallegiance. Kindness. Quadrants. Not getting all her friends killed. 

“Deception is not a staple of a healthy moirallegiance.” 

“Fuck you for implying I’d lie to her!” you say vehemently. “I’m just not about to start letting other people fight my battles for me, okay, and for the record, she’s getting alone time right now, which she needs sometimes, and I know it’s fucking _impossible_ for you to imagine me putting someone’s needs before my own, but that’s what I’m fucking doing!” 

Kanaya’s face is still unreadable, and you hate them, all of them, Kanaya, Aradia, Terezi, all these stupid brilliant inscrutable girls who could tear you up at a moment’s notice, draw out every kind of embarrassing revelation from you, see much more of you than they ever deserved to –

“You know, you’re the only one who hasn’t tried to kill me yet,” you say suddenly, your voice flatly thoughtful. 

“I’m _what_?” 

“Terezi, Aradia, they each got their chance. Aradia actually did it, so points to her, and Terezi did it in another timeline. You only ever punched me in the face. Could have gotten me before Terezi did! Like, double whammy with Ampora, one big swing of the chainsaw –” 

You’re giggling, you think, and Kanaya frowns at you. “I never wanted to kill you. You _are_ my friend, Vriska.” 

“I’m just saying, if you feel left out –” 

“I don’t feel left out.” You can see Kanaya _thinking_ about you, drawing fucking _conclusions_ or some shit, and you hate it. “I think you should find Terezi.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” You wave Kanaya away like you’re six again, like the thought of her pity makes you want to split apart with rage. “Not a word of this to your fucking matesprit, by the way. If she tries to fucking psychoanalyze me, or whatever she calls it…” 

“Rose is not my matesprit.” And that gambit was worth it just for the loss of placidity in Kanaya’s voice. 

“Seriously? _Still?_ Woooooooow, Maryam.” You clap her on the shoulder, because if you’ve got something to mock her for, maybe she’ll forget the last five minutes ever took place. “What's the issue, even? She’s clearly got it bad for you.” 

“Considering the delicacy of our respective cultures’ romance systems –” 

“Bullshit! She wants you two to act out one of your novels, like, a sweep ago. If you don’t get on it, I’ll have to interfere. For the timeline! You landing in hearts with an alien could be vital to its success, don’t let us down!” 

“I have been led to believe meddling’s _my_ territory.” She almost sounds amused. 

“Can’t be that hard, if –” 

“I still have my chainsaw, Vriska,” Kanaya says warningly. “Unless you’re _actually_ trying for murder attempt number three –” 

Your smile’s a bit too wide. Maybe things can be normal between the two of you after all. 

You find Terezi in the common area, in the end, and she sniffs at you curiously. “You’ve either sparred with someone or had a tantrum,” she says. “Tell me which.” 

“Shitty dream bubble,” you say. Then add, “The, uh, the battlefield,” when she twists her mouth in confusion at your vagueness. 

You’re pretty sure you know Terezi knows that your memories of the Battlefield are altogether quite positive. But she doesn’t press you, just lets you flop down on top of her before pulling an arm around you. She’s just a bit warmer than you, warm enough for you to want to stay there forever and forget the entire rest of the day.

-

You do not tell Aradia all of this, obviously. But you think you may have told her more than you meant to. When she looks at you when you’ve finished, it’s with a certain kind of platonic pity. 

“Like I said,” she says slowly, “ghosts are different. Some of them are themselves. But some of them – if you take a certain anger close enough to you, make it part of your identity –” 

“She wasn’t even – it would have been better if she’d hit me or something. But she just yelled at me and left. Ugh, Megido, it was entry-level verbal evisceration. It’s like, Pyrope, do you need help yelling at me? I can think up better material in a snap.” 

Aradia frowns at you; that, now, is definitely pity, and you hate it. “It’s not _you_ she died hating, Vriska,” she says quietly. “You're thinking of my death, there, and even then, I was a different kind of ghost. I didn’t care about getting revenge on you until I had a body.” 

“And you got me good, too.” You don’t think about those hours of your life; just the burst of light, just appearing on the Battlefield and the triumph of it. Sometimes, though, you remember the look on Terezi’s face, lit up by the golden towers of Prospit; a look you couldn’t read, a look you didn’t have time to read, because you’d had a Boy-Skylark to wrangle. “Sorry it didn’t last.” 

“I knew it wouldn’t.” Aradia’s actually frowning now, you think. “It was always going to happen the way it happened. I mean – I didn’t know you’d survive. At the time, I believe I thought Terezi would kill you.” She smiles. “I’m glad you got another chance.” 

Chances. Second chances. _Fucking_ second chances. Way to up the pressure, Megido. 

“Do you think I deserved it?” 

“That’s an interesting question, Vriska. Do you think I’m uniquely qualified to absolve you?” 

“You sound like Lalonde.” 

“I like Rose. I don’t think I’ve talked to her much in this timeline, but I hope I can get to know her sometime. Vriska, you asked about the dream bubbles, but you’re better equipped to understand their functionality than me. I’m just a Time player. I understand timelines, not the directions of narrative.” 

“Narrative?” 

“Your ancestor explained this to me once. Not Mindfang, before you ask.”

“The reset shit. The version of Mindfang that came from a lame cuddly planet for babies. I’ve heard a few ghosts mention it.” It feels good to actually _know_ something when you’re talking to her. “Megido, I’ve got too many irons in the fire to _not_ know what you’re talking about.” 

“Then I guess you don’t need me to tell you how dream bubbles work?” 

“No, sorry, I - oh, fuck you, that was a joke, wasn’t it?” 

“I’ve been known to make them.” 

“You have _two_ jokes, Megido. You have saying you’re made of time, m-a-d-e made, which sounds like capital-m-Maid, haha, brilliant stuff, and you have the highly sophisticated twist, which is wiggling your eyebrows when you say the word _time_.” 

“I can identify someone who envies my material when I see them.” Aradia’s face is so jovial that you can’t help but smile back at her.

“Anyway. Justice, Vriska, timelines, they’re all lesser sub-forces to the overarching force. If you ran into someone in these dream bubbles, it’s because something, somewhere, whatever greater force powers movement here – thinks it’s the right moment for you to do so. And if you don’t see them, that’s because either you or they have their own journey that must involve not seeing each other. Or – _thinks_ might not be the word. But it's an alignment of events. A convergence of forces.” 

“Megido, you’re not making any sense.” 

“I know! Isn’t it great? It would be a shame if every facet of Paradox Space was perfectly comprehensible.” She sobers a bit. “But what it means is this, really. You can’t control who you meet in the dream bubbles, Vriska, but who you are influences it to a point. Sometimes you meet someone because you really want to, and sometimes because you really don’t want to. And sometimes you manage to avoid someone for the entire span of travel, even if they’re the person you most want to see, because the moment at which you see them is... withheld.” 

“So it’s stupid predestination again.” 

“To a point. But not in the timeline sense. A more powerful force.” Aradia, for once, looks properly sad. “It's the same reason you're being held back even now from certain things that would make you happy. So long as you’re between events of importance, traveling through the Furthest Ring, your present can be a lot of things. But you’re heading towards a fixed mark. That’s what Time means, really. Fixed marks.” 

“I’m happy!” You suddenly hate the direction of this conversation. “Fuck you, I’m happier than I’ve ever been!” 

“I know,” says Aradia, and pats your shoulder again. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have gone into it, but there’s certain elements here that I’m trying to work out, too.” Her smile has an ironic twist to it now. “Being a god of time doesn’t mean you know everything about everything, you know.” 

“I don’t know what any of that means,” you groan. “Fuck, why was this so useless? I should have known you’d just be weird and cryptic at me, this is even worse than when you were telling us we were doomed.” 

“You don’t mean that.” She says it as a fact, not as a question or request. “Plus, we’re not all doomed anymore. We never were! It’s all a lot more complicated than I thought it was. There’s a lot I didn’t understand then; there’s a lot I don’t understand now.” She stands up. “Is our meeting over?” 

“I’m sure you’ve got shit to do,” you mumble. 

“You know I’m made of time,” says Aradia, and when you groan, adds, “Hey, you asked for it.” Then she looks at you for a few minutes longer and sighs, as if she wants to say something but can’t decide what. 

“Good luck, Vriska,” she says at last. 

You want to say, “Already have it. Allllllll of it!”, but the words die in your throat. 

-

Terezi is awake when you stumble back into your block, curled up on the couch in the same blanket you’d draped around her. Her face turns toward the door the moment you enter. 

“There you are,” she says. “Fucking off to explore dream bubbles without me, I see.” 

“You were asleep, asshole.” You sit down next to her and she flops her head into your lap. You glance at your palmhusk; it’s something like three hours before when sunset would have been on Alternia. “What was I going to do, wake you up?” 

“What were you going to do, pull me from a dream dream bubble and into an awake dream bubble? What a horrifying thought.” 

“Maybe I think you need to get more sleep.” It’s such a stupidly pale thing to say that it takes all your self-control not to clap your hand over your mouth when you say it, and you think Terezi notices, because she giggles a little. 

“Maybe you’re not my lusus,” she says, and then makes a face, and she knows she’s thinking the same thing you are, which is that neither of your lusii ever gave a shit about how much sleep you got.

But instead you say, “I’m already very sensitive about the fact that I’m not a cool dragon. You don’t need to rub it in.” 

“You’re very cool the way you are, Vriska,” she says with a yawn, and that’s almost sincere; a forgetting of lines, a violation of Scourge Sisters Trash Talk Code of the highest order. She really _is_ tired. 

The compliment shouldn’t make you feel as warm as it does. 

You move to your recuperacoon in the end, and she puts her chin on your shoulder and wraps her arms around you as you float in the green space. If Aradia’s words tangle in your head, if a part of you is hammering at them and trying to figure out what they mean, you are able to put them aside. 

Nobody can beat Vriska Serket at putting things aside. She is simply the best there is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all vrisrezi fic can have little a aravris, as a treat :) 
> 
> super basic epigraph for this one but it's basic because it's GOOD, okay? it's a GOOD quote. the existence of troll william faulkner brings up several questions, such as: what the fuck did he write about if trolls had no concept of family? was there a troll The South? if there was a troll The South, was there a troll tennessee williams? (yes.)


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Were all stars to disappear or die,  
> I should learn to look at an empty sky  
> And feel its total dark sublime,  
> Though this might take me a little time."
> 
> \- Troll W.H. Auden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING in this one for depictions of depression, alcoholism, teenage incompetence, and love actually (2003)

“Dave, you _cannot_ argue that quadrants aren’t a viable solution to this problem,” Karkat is saying. “If he squares away the secretary in a concupiscent quadrant, and keeps the other one in pale, everyone’s happy!” 

“Except that’s not how marriage works,” says Dave. “Like, fuck that, sorry, Karkat, in our new universe, I’m not staying at home and listening to Joni Mitchell while you fuck your way through every secretary in town.” 

Karkat’s face flushes and he crosses his arms. “Wasn’t offering, Strider.”

“What, am I not even fit for your Joni Mitchell quadrant?” Dave throws a hand over his forehead and tips back on the couch, but he and Karkat are a safe distance apart. From your occasional intrusions into the common areas, you know this is not always the case when they haven’t got company. “I cannot fucking understate how heartbroken I am.” 

Vriska looks up from her palmhusk; all while you’ve suffered through _Human_ _Love, Actually_ for Karkat’s sake, she has been playing Candy Cull with her head in your lap. “Oh, god, it’s still happening,” she’s saying. “The worst human civilization has to offer, and it’s still going. Strider, you are human best bros with someone with _taste_ , how do you put up with this?” 

“Vriska, claiming that John's shitty movies are good says a lot more about _your_ taste than it says about mine,” says Dave. “Also, don’t talk to me about ‘human civilization’ as if the troll version of this movie is not scarring. No aspect of our old holiday spirit bullshit can be improved upon by watching Troll Colin Firth murdering lowbloods en masse.” 

Rose must have appeared dramatically in the doorway sometime during the monologue. “I don’t recognize and have never recognized the validity of the ‘holiday spirit’,” she says, “and _Love, Actually_ is a crime against humanity, so by all rights, I shouldn’t care, but Dave, would it not be late May right now if Earth had not blown up?” 

“I’m declaring war against time,” says Dave lazily. “My own aspect, it’s very tragic. This is our first step.” 

“Any man who would cheat on a middle-aged Emma Thompson isn’t worth a damn anyway,” drawls Rose, still refusing to come into view. “It’s not realistic. It’s okay, Emma, there are better days ahead. Once you discover the lifestyle of a sophisticated divorcee –” 

“I swear to god, if all of you don’t shut up,” Karkat starts warningly, and you obligingly get back to Human Emma Thompson’s quadrant betrayal. 

-

arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]

AG: Do you think Fussyfangs would 8e jealous? >::::(  
AG: I don’t think Lalonde should walk around flaunting her attraction to human cele8s!   
AG: It’s a delic8 situ8ton and I don’t think she should 8e endangering it.   
GC: VR1SK4 1'M PR3TTY CONF1D3NT K4N4Y4 1S NOT GO1NG TO B3 UPS3T 4BOUT ROS3 3V4LU4T1NG TH3 4TTR4CT1V3N3SS OF 4 HUM4N 4CTR3SS WHO 1S, YOU KNOW, D34D  
GC: 1'M SUR3 SH3 4ND K4N4Y4 H4V3 4LR34DY D1SCUSS3D TH3 M3R1TS OF TROLL KR1ST3N ST3W4RT OR WHO3V3R 1T 1S K4N4Y4 L1K3S  
AG: Shows what you know, Kanaya thinks Troll Kristen Stewart is overr8d!!!!!!!!  
AG: Or that’s what she told me, at least. ::::/  
GC: ROS3 4ND K4N4Y4 W1LL F1GUR3 1T OUT  
GC: S1NC3 WH3N DO YOU 3V3N C4R3 4BOUT TH1S STUFF 4NYW4Y  
AG: Since we ran out of other shit to do, Terezi!  
AG: The amount of love life meddling I’m holding 8ack would honestly 8e mind-8lowing if you could grasp its scope!

-

“The amount of meddling in this movie is mind-blowing,” says Vriska appreciatively, two weeks after you’ve been in on Dave and Karkat’s movie night. “Lalonde, how do you _and_ Strider tolerate this many interminable romantic comedies? This does not seem like your thing. It’s not gloomy enough.” 

Rose sounds almost sheepish when she answers. “Our discussion of Emma Thompson may have brought back a certain nostalgia about her filmography. I had aspirations at being a precocious child, of course I watched a few adaptations of generically classic English literature.” 

“The uniforms smell quite nice,” you say helpfully. “Though Alternian fashion is far superior. And if this 'Dogberry', if that's even his real name, is an accurate depiction of Ancient Earth law enforcement, I have to say your standards were alarmingly lax.” 

“I have no idea what half the dialogue means, but that’s hanging around Lalonde on a normal day, so that’s fine,” Vriska contributes. 

You are usually good at not giving a shit about Earth movies, but this one is funny if you think about it the right way, and it concerns meddling with the gullible, which is of unending delight to you, and – and, well, it’s about two people who hate each other, until they realize they don’t. 

While you’re laughing at Human Emma Thompson and her adjacent man for falling for this simple of a deception, Kanaya stretches out thoughtfully. It’s her and Rose on the couch that isn’t occupied by you and Vriska, now, and they _are_ touching, Rose’s forearm pressed up against Kanaya’s in a move you have no doubt was carefully calculated. There is slight contact, too, between the tips of their shoes where their crossed legs mirror each other. It makes you laugh a little, but it also makes you conscious of the display that is Vriska, once more, sprawled across you. 

Truly, you are the only couple on this meteor with a decent sense of timing. You’d blame the humans if you didn’t know Karkat and Kanaya were equally stupid. 

“It’s interesting,” says Rose now. “Would a troll version of this movie even work? They’d just be kismeses from the start.” 

“Unless the hatred was platonic in nature,” says Kanaya, and you snort. 

You don’t usually _give_ a shit about this stuff, but – “Maryam, that dialogue at the start is _textbook_ pitch! No, the plot would be about conspiring to make them flip red.” 

“Why would they do that, though?” Rose frowns. 

“Their kismessitude is too destructive,” Vriska suggests lazily. “Like, dueling every time they see each other, the blood is flowing freely, property damage to the eighth degree. And all their friends are _squares_ who want to put a stop to it.” 

“Vriska, someone would just auspisticize for them,” Kanaya says with a long-suffering air. “We have _four_ quadrants, loathe as we are to forget it.” 

You and Vriska answer at the same time: you say, “Maybe nobody has the globes to auspisticize!” while Vriska says, “Fussyfangs, ashen takes the fun out of eeeeeeeeverything.” 

The two of you high five. Rose buries her face into Kanaya’s shoulder dramatically and calls you and Vriska a _menace to society_. As if she doesn’t owe you both for setting her up for this daring act of physical contact. Seriously, you can smell Kanaya’s brilliant jade blush from _across the room._

You’re not paying attention _all_ the way through the movie, but you _are_ listening when Human Emma Thompson’s furry-faced consort says, voice soaked through with emotion, “I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?” 

You squeeze Vriska’s hand before you know you’ve done it, and she squeezes back. There is suddenly some kind of void opening near your pusher, some kind of lump in your throat, some kind of largeness you feel that you can’t comprehend properly.

Then Vriska’s protesting, “But why can’t she kill Claudio herself? Why does he need to do it _for_ her, Lalonde, your human gender norms are so _stupid,_ ” and you move on. But a part of you thinks about the _real_ argument you would have made to Kanaya: that sometimes, it’s a gift to find out you don’t have to hate someone. 

\- 

turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

TG: terezi can i ask you something if you promise me its off the record  
TG: like burn the documents scrap the transcripts delete all instances of this log  
TG: no talking about it no thinking about it no displaying it on a public platform as part of a montage of thought provoking character moments collected over the course of our meteor trip   
GC: D4V3 JUST S4Y WH4T YOU N33D 4DV1C3 ON. 1 4M 4N 3XP3RT 1N M4NY TOP1CS!  
GC: DO YOU P3RH4PS R3QU1R3 4 CR4SH COURS3 1N TH3 RUL3S OF FL4RP? >:]   
TG: yeah how did you guess  
TG: all my life ive dreamed of one thing   
TG: and its your platonic girlfriend murdering me violently in a friendly round of troll dnd   
TG: humans have larping too you know its just done by like  
TG: sad lonely men who hang out in parks wearing capes and waving swords around  
GC: BUT YOU 4R3 4 M4N D4V3  
GC: WHO W34RS 4 C4P3  
GC: 4ND H4S B33N KNOWN TO US3 SWORDS   
TG: fuck   
TG: owned again  
TG: anyway no i dont want to know about troll dnd   
TG: i want to know   
TG: and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD dont tell karkat  
TG: about quadrants  
GC: >:O  
GC: C4N 1T B3? D4V3 STR1D3R F1NDS 1T 1N H1S H34RT TO B3 CUR1OUS 4BOUT TH3 CULTUR3 OF A R4C3 TH4T CURR3NTLY OUTNUMB3RS H1M TWO TO ON3?   
GC: WHY C4N’T 1 T3LL K4RK4T  
GC: 4LSO WHY 4R3 YOU NOT 4SK1NG K4RK4T   
GC: 1 DON'T KNOW WH4T TH3 R3L4T1ONSH1P B3TW33N TH3 TWO OF YOU CONST1TUT3S BUT 1F 4NYTH1NG COUNTS 4S 1NF1D3L1TY H3R3 1 TH1NK 1T'S 4SK1NG SOM3ON3 WHO 1SN’T H1M TO D3L1V3R 3XPOS1T1ON ON TROLL ROM4NC3 >;]  
TG: ok terezi we get it you are great at delivering sick burns  
TG: but dont you think karkats already explained this shit to me a billion fucking times  
TG: i milked the ol golly gee whats a quadrant routine for a fucking year before it got old because getting a rise out of karkat is hilarious  
GC: OBV1OUSLY  
TG: but like   
TG: i have an actual question  
TG: about your quadrant  
TG: the diamonds one  
GC: D4V3 1'M W4RN1NG YOU 1N 4DV4NC3 1 KNOW NOTH1NG 4BOUT L1K3  
GC: 4DV4NC3D QU4DR4NT TH3ORY  
GC: L1K3 1 4M PR3TTY MUCH TH3 WORST P3RSON YOU COULD H4V3 4SK3D 4BOUT TH1S  
TG: are you sure about that  
GC: ........  
GC: S3COND WORST  
GC: 1 GU3SS TH1RD WORST 1F YOU COUNT G4MZ33 BUT H3'S NOT R34LLY 4 V14BL3 OPT1ON  
TG: damn how do you know the murderclown isnt a fucking quadrant scholar  
TG: we think hes holing up in the vents doing nefarious plans of an undisclosed nature   
TG: when really hes just penning the dissertation to end all dissertations on your shitty lovesquares and their underlying meanings  
GC: W3LL YOU C4N 4LW4YS F33L FR33 TO TRY 4SK1NG H1M  
TG: nah dont feel like getting murdered  
TG: terezi am i leading karkat on   
GC: WH4T?   
TG: like he and i talk about shit sometimes i guess  
TG: hes not weeping into my bodice or whatever but   
TG: slightly heavier shit than dissecting one of his stupid movies  
TG: and its like  
TG: i know i have in the past flaunted a reputation as an asshole who does not care about anything or whatever  
TG: but im not actually trying to hurt the guys feelings  
TG: because that would suck  
TG: and he is basically one of my best friends  
TG: but am i even like allowed to call him that???   
TG: fuck you guys for making friendship a way of hitting on someone its fucked up rose is right   
TG: terezi a little help here  
GC: WH4T? SORRY 1 W4S JUST F1GUR1NG 1'D L3T YOU F1N1SH  
GC: THOUGH 1 KNOW TH4T'S NOT 4 CONC3PT YOU'R3 F4M1L14R W1TH  
TG: oooh ooh owned etc  
TG: but like for real terezi what are your thoughts  
GC: 1 W4RN3D YOU D4V3 TH1S 1S NOT SOM3TH1NG 1 4M W3LL V3RS3D 1N  
GC: BUT FOR TH3 R3CORD MO1R4LL3G14NC3 1S 4 D3D1C4T3D S3T OF SOC14L RUL3S  
GC: 3V3RYON3 1S D1FF3R3NT BUT 1T WOULD B3 PR3TTY STUP1D 1F JUST SH4R1NG SOM3TH1NG P3RSON4L 4BOUT YOURS3LF COUNT3D 4S 4 P4L3 OV3RTUR3  
TG: ok   
TG: so what does count as a pale overture  
TG: god this terminology is stupid  
GC: H4V3 YOU NOT B33N W4TCH1NG ROM4NT1C COM3D13S W1TH K4RK4T FOR 4T L34ST TH3 L4ST HUM4N Y34R  
TG: is it like   
TG: the shooshing and papping   
GC: Y3S D4V3 "TH3 SHOOSH1NG 4ND TH3 P4PP1NG"   
GC: 1F YOU 4TT3MPT3D TH1S W1TH K4RK4T W1THOUT H4V1NG G3NU1N3 P4L3 1NT3NT1ONS TOW4RD H1M   
TG: massive faux pas yeah i gotcha  
TG: should i also just not touch him in general   
TG: or like when he’s upset   
GC: 1S TH1S 4 CONC3RN?   
GC: >:O  
GC: > :O  
GC: >:O  
GC: > :O  
TG: ok thats enough of that i think  
TG: stupid question anyway never mind   
TG: this was actually marginally helpful im shocked and appalled  
TG: your capacity for constant unrelenting bullshit is slipping  
GC: 1 W1LL NOW 1M1T4T3 SOMEON3 WHO 4CTU4LLY KNOWS TH31R SH1T 4R3 YOU R34DY  
GC: Its Not A Stupid Question Its Just A Question You Should Ask Karkat Rather Than Me   
GC: W4S TH4T GOOD? >:?  
TG: excellent  
TG: instead of choosing between being bullied and mothered i got both  
TG: thanks for the help tz ill talk to you later

-

You and Dave do talk later, and then you talk less. 

As the midway point of your second year approaches, you find that the days in which you’re too tired to properly exist multiply against your will. Dream bubbles lose their novelty; even Vriska stops enthusiastically insisting that you check them out. It turns out that even the multiplying memories of sixteen people and all their alternate selves grow old with time. 

Rose disappears from the common areas altogether for something like a month, as does Kanaya; when you drop in on the latter, instead of working on some project or another, she’s curled up in her chair and rereading novels that you know she’s read before. Just past the halfway point of the year, Dave and Karkat have a mysterious argument that stops them from talking to each other for a week. Then they pick up as before, but when you and Vriska peek in on Can Town, the mood seems not to welcome interference. 

Vriska is herself, and you are yourself. Or maybe you’re not. You’re not sure you ever knew who Terezi Pyrope was, you realize, outside of the collection of images the outside world remembered. If you are forgetting to pull up those images, if who you are is a girl who clings to her moirail in the days and listlessly wastes hours in the nights, waiting for the next thing to happen, you don’t know how to change it.

Sometimes Vriska is patient with these moods. You can speak softly for hours and she lets you; or she lets you not speak at all, and reads to you from one of her pirate books while you lie still with your eyes closed. You watch shitty human movies; sometimes with some combination of the others, but more often alone. 

At other times, Vriska seems to vibrate with unstated frustration at your inability to be a version of yourself that she recognizes. There are days when she paces around the room, close to shaking apart with the need for _action_ of a sort nobody can give her right now. One night, she turns off the movie, shoves you off of her, and walks to the center of her block, where she kicks furiously at the pile of clothes that she’s accumulated there over the course of the week. 

“Why aren’t we _fucking_ doing anything?” she says, unprompted. “When did we stop doing things, Terezi?” 

You still do strategy meetings, but they’ve been stretched out to once every two weeks, and when they happen, only the two of you and Rose shows up. You go over the same plans. You fiddle with the same designs.

“Because we’re on a meteor,” you say blandly, “flying through space for three years towards an unknown future.” 

“It’s a known future!” says Vriska furiously. “We know everything there is to know about it! It’s known because we planned it out, and because Lalonde could see shit about it back when she wasn’t avoiding us to fuck with the alchemiter, and you, used to, you know, have all these ideas about how to deal with it, and Strider and Vantas used to at least show up!” 

You don’t answer. There’s not much to say. This seems to make her angrier, because she stamps her feet uselessly and yells, “You brought me back to save the timeline, but I can’t do that if you won’t _fucking_ let me!” 

You think she sees, then. You think she sees how empty you are, inside, fundamentally, so you let her storm out of her own block and stomp off down the hallway. Then, mechanically, you get up and walk back to your place. Pull off your glasses. Put on your dragon cape. Have a good long cry about nothing, the empty kind, where you’re only even doing it because it feels like the thing to do. 

You don’t know how long it is before Vriska shows up at your door; you ignore the eight knocks, insistent but softer than usual. When she lets herself in anyway, you pull the hood of the cape over your face and curl up into a ball. You realize, distantly, that you never even put together a _please don’t leave, I’ll be better_ speech. 

You think about your other self, dying in an alternate universe in the knowledge that she’d given you a chance she didn’t have. You think about knowing you’ve wasted it. 

“You don’t have to be gentle about it,” you say distantly when you hear Vriska sit down next to you. “I get it. I’m not exactly fun anymore, am I?” 

You can’t really smell her through the cape, but you do hear the bafflement in her voice, and hate her for it. “Terezi, what the fuck?” 

This conversation is probably worth showing your face for, but everything feels pointless enough, lost enough, that you stay as you are. “You don’t have to stay,” you say, and it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever said, but you say it anyway, because it was always going to turn out like this, won’t it? “If I’m – if you’re not getting anything out of this. You don’t have to do it just for my sake.” 

“Getting anything out of what,” says Vriska, and there’s an edge to her voice that you might have been able to read if you weren’t lost in the empty hopeless void of your own head.

“This.” You loosely wave a hand between you and the direction of her voice. “Being moirails.” She breathes in sharply, and because you are a _selfish coward_ you add, “Do you want this? Still?” 

“Yes?” says Vriska, and she definitely sounds caught off-guard now. “Yes, of course, do – do you not? Are you mad at me? I’m sorry, I’m sorry I yelled at you, fuck, I knew I’d fucked this up –” 

“I’m not mad.” With what feels like the biggest effort you’ve ever put into anything, you pick yourself across the floor to sit across from her.

“Then why don’t you want –” 

“Because I’m not very useful right now,” you say; in the aftermath of more stupid crying, you still can’t smell that well, but you try to keep your chin steady, try to direct your face towards her. You can hear her breathing, just slightly too fast. “I’m not very fun, or very interesting, or –”

“No, no, fuck that,” she says. “Seriously, fuck that, you’re still _Terezi_ , all of us suck right now because we’re bored and miserable and out of ideas, but that’s not your – I’m not about to fuck off just because of that, seriously, how shitty do you think I am?” 

“I don’t think you’re shitty. And I wouldn’t blame you if –” 

“ _I’m not leaving!_ ” she hisses furiously, and reaches forward to grab you by the forearms; in her grip, in this moment, you feel stupidly small. “Not here, not on this meteor, not for as long as you need me.” 

You think you can hear the pity in her voice, both romantic and platonic. And it disgusts you, and you disgust yourself, but she’s here, and at the end of the day, you have never been capable of wanting her to leave. 

-

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

GA: Terezi Are You Familiar With The Social Context Of Human Soporifics  
GA: The Ones Rose Is Now Alchemizing With Semi-Frequent Success  
GA: Do You Think We Should Be Worried  
GC: K4N4Y4 1 DON’T KNOW  
GC: 1 4M NOT 4N 3XP3RT 1N HUM4N CULTUR3!  
GC: COULDN'T YOU 4SK D4V3?   
GC: OR YOU KNOW ROS3 H3RS3LF  
GC: WHY DO3S 3V3RYON3 K33P COM1NG TO M3 FOR 4DV1C3 4BOUT TH1NGS W3 H4V3 D3S1GN4T3D 3XP3RTS ON  
GC: ON3 D4Y C4N’T SOM3ON3 PL34S3 JUST 4SK M3 4BOUT TH3 H1STORY OF 4LT3RN14N L4W   
GA: I Have In The Past Been Accused Of 'Meddling' By Certain Figures Whose Identities May Be Familiar To You  
GA: Therefore I Am Attempting To Be Delicate Due To Emphatically Not Wanting To Give The Wrong Idea About Anything  
GC: WH4T K1ND OF WRONG 1D34  
GC: OBV1OUSLY YOU'R3 FLUSH3D FOR H3R 3V3RYON3 C4N S33 1T  
GA: My Understanding Of Human Relationships Is That Their Romance Contains Both Flushed And Pale Elements  
GA: And I Have No Idea How Rose Would React To Me Attempting To Hold Her Back In A Pale Capacity  
GA: Just Kidding I Know Its Badly Because It Already Happened Once  
GC: 1 S4Y TH1S 4S SOM3ON3 WHO SP3NDS MOR3 T1M3 W1TH VR1SK4 TH4N 4NY R34SON4BL3 TROLL OR HUM4N OR S3NT13NT B31NG SHOULD  
GC: 1 R34LLY DONT TH1NK VR1SK4 4ND ROS3 4R3 COMP4R4BL3   
GC: ROS3 1SNT GO1NG TO R3S3NT YOU FOR 4SK1NG 4 QU3ST1ON   
GC: H3LL 3V3N VR1SK4 PROB4BLY LOV3D TH3 4TT3NT1ON YOU G4V3 H3R SH3 JUST COULDN'T 4DM1T TO 1T  
GA: How About You Stay The Expert On Your Light Player And I Assert Authority As The Expert On Mine  
GA: Not That Rose Is Mine In Any Sense Of The Word She Is Her Own Person With Her Own Autonomy  
GA: But Rose And Vriska Have More In Common Than You Give Them Credit For  
GA: And I Have Reason To Suspect The Former Is Not Being Direct With Me About The Nature Of Her New Interest In The Alchemiter  
GC: YOU GUYS 4R3 SO W31RD  
GC: YOU'V3 B33N UP 34CH OTH3RS NOOKS TH1S WHOL3 TR1P 4ND 4PP4R3NTLY C4N'T 4SK 34CH OTH3R 4 QU3ST1ON W1THOUT M4K1NG 4 WHOL3 PRODUCT1ON OUT OF 1T! >:[  
GC: C4N'T JUST TWO P3OPL3 ON TH1S STUP1D M3T3OR 3NT3R 4 FUNCT1ON4L M4T3SPR1TSH1P W1THOUT M4K1NG 4 SW33PS-LONG PRODUCT1ON OUT OF 1T  
GC: TH1S 1SN’T BL4STOFF R3S34RCH FUSSYF4NGS  
GA: Okay As A Precursor To What Im About To Patiently Explain  
GA: Please Never Use That Nickname For Me Again  
GA: Anyway First Of All I Don't Even Know If That Is The Nature Of Roses Feelings  
GC: TH4T'S TH3 B1GG3ST LO4D OF MUSCL3B34STSH1T 1'V3 3V3R H34RD BUT OK4Y  
GA: Second Of All Can You Accept That I Have Delicate Situations Im Looking Out For And Therefore Certain Things That I Am Keeping To Myself For The Moment  
GA: In Fact Rose And I Are Not Quadranted   
GA: Particularly Not In A Quadrant That Requires Transparency About Your Own Feelings  
GA: Reticence About Broaching Certain Topics With Her Is Thus Not As Worrying A Sign In Me As It Is In Certain Others  
GC: DO 1 D3T3CT 4 H1NT OF 1MPL1C4T1ON 4BOUT MY OWN R3L4T1ONSH1P?  
GC: TH4T W4S V3RY N4STY! 1'M 1MPR3SS3D  
GC: UNFORTUN4T3LY TH3 COURT F1NDS YOUR 3V1D3NC3 QU3ST1ON4BL3  
GC: H3R TYR4NNY D3M4NDS 4 SOURC3  
GA: Vriska Is Convinced That You Are Keeping Something From Her  
GA: That Something Is Upsetting You And That You Are Attempting To Hide It  
GA: In Fact Apparently She Came Across You In The Middle Of A Crisis A Few Weeks Ago That You Never Explained The Nature Of In A Way That Makes Sense To Her  
GC: >:O  
GC: SOUNDS L1K3 YOU TWO H4D QU1T3 4N 3MOT1ON4L CONV3RS4T1ON!  
GC: SHOULD 1 B3 WORR13D 4BOUT COMP3T1T1ON 1N TH3 P4L3 QU4DR4NT?  
GA: Not Funny Didnt Laugh  
GA: That Ship Has Sailed So Long Ago It Might As Well Have Been Incorporated Into Orphaner Dualscar’s Fleet  
GC: NOT M1NDF4NG’S? >;]  
GA: No.  
GA: Anyway Rose Is Convinced That The Pale Quadrants Limitation Of 'Emotional Conversations' To One Person And One Person Only Is Unhealthy  
GC: K4N4Y4 1 W4S K1DD1NG 1T W4S 4 JOK3  
GC: R3M3MB3R JOK3S YOU US3D TO LOV3 JOK3S   
GA: And If By Emotional Conversation You Mean That Vriska Interrupted Me Hanging Out With Rose To Throw Herself Down On The Couch And Go On An Impassioned Rant About How Shes Never Sure If Youre Okay Or Not Then Yes I Guess You Could Say She Had An Emotional Conversation With Us  
GA: Rose Then Proceeded To Psychoanalyze Both Of You Which Vriska Did Not Take Kindly To  
GA: And Then Karkat Showed Up And Accused Vriska Of Quadrant Vacillation   
GA: In What Im Pretty Sure Was A Blatant Projection Of His Own Issues In That Department   
GA: Rose Was Also Pretty Sure Of This And Did Not Hesitate To Say The Phrase ‘Blatant Projection’ Out Loud  
GA: After Which Karkat And Vriska Both Stormed Off  
GC: .........  
GC: WOW   
GC: 1 M1SS 4LL TH3 FUN  
GA: You Were With Dave I Believe  
GA: Anyway  
GA: I Guess I’ll Talk To Karkat About It

-

You are careful with Vriska, after that, and you know this is the opposite of what Kanaya thinks you ought to do, but Kanaya can’t even ask out an alien, and Kanaya couldn’t _keep_ Vriska, could she? So you try for a balance: subdued when you can’t bear to be upbeat, upbeat when you can be, and absent when you’re unwilling to pretend. 

On one of the latter occasions, you plant your lips against Vriska’s forehead in a goodbye kiss and tell her you’re heading off to your block for an early day, then walk in the opposite direction. 

The observation deck seems like a dead end; what you think you’d rather do is retreat into the hallways of the meteor, wander them until it feels like disappearing. You idly wonder what you’d do, tonight, if you ran into Gamzee down there. You doubt he could say much to you that you hadn’t thought about yourself, and then you wonder if that had ever drawn your other self to him. The curiosity as to whether he could. 

Fifteen minutes into your walk, you hear movement in an adjacent room, and poke your head in the doorway. You are met with a dim room, the strong scent of orange-lemon, and a sharp smell that you don’t recognize. 

“Terezi,” says Rose. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“Chance encounter,” you say, moving to join her where she’s sitting on the floor with a mug in her hand and an unfamiliar bottle beside her. “Shouldn’t your light powers predict this kind of thing?” 

She laughs. “One day, Terezi, I will get you to drop your conviction that my Sight is somehow more useful than yours. And no, you know perfectly well that I did not predict this, any more than you could have predicted the recent Vriska-Karkat coffee machine incident.” 

“Awful example. I could predict _that_ in my sleep. My failure to prevent it was a matter of morbid curiosity.” 

“Point.” With slightly unsteady movements, she raises the cup and tips it toward you in acknowledgement. 

“What are you even drinking? It smells awful.” 

“Tastes awful, too.” She takes a sip as if for emphasis. “I would estimate the alcohol content of shitty wine, and the taste of… the taste of _really_ shitty wine. If I am to develop a hilarious alcohol dependency, I will have to try harder.” 

“What is an alcohol dependency, and why is it hilarious?” 

“Poetic justice,” says Rose, as if this is meant to cast light on the issue. “Situational irony. The tragic weight of generational cycles. Or some horseshit like that. Tell me, was Vriska really raised by a giant spider who made her murder fellow trolls from a young age?” 

You blink at the subject change, and your mouth feels dry. “That’s a bit personal, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” says Rose thoughtfully, “the fun thing about troll society is that you aren’t willing to explain that kind of shit. Or everyone walks around accepting it, not even bothering to think about how it ties into their… what’s the word. Trauma.” Her voice is just a bit softer than usual; what you can smell of her movements is more fluid. “It’s like a fucking conference… convention… compendium of them. The men. You know the ones. _Brothers_. Daves. A society of Dave Striders.” 

“I am very much uninterested in discussing with you the trauma I don’t have.” 

“Point, proven.” Rose seems to attempt a wink at you, which doesn’t go well. “No words on Vriska, though. And you _know_ her, don’t you? I bet you have a… if I were you, I’d have this long thesis on Vriska in my head, that I never show anyone, or even tell anyone about, because saying it all out loud is too releve… rerelev… revelatrory.” She squints a little. “Upd _ate_. Alcohol content not that bad. Just… inefficient. _Revelatory_.” 

“One day, Lalonde,” you say, “you will figure out that other people’s minds aren’t yours to poke around in.” 

“Says the Seer of Mind herself. Do you see the hypocrisy of –” 

“Yes,” you hiss, as an alternative to whacking her with your cane, “and I don’t like myself very much, do I?” 

There is a long, long silence as you process what you’ve just said, and try to think of a way to take it back. You suppose it’s not as bad for Rose to hear you say it as it would be for Vriska or even Karkat, but you still feel yourself cringing with mortification. 

Rose leans forward and pats you on the shoulder. “That’s okay!” she says brightly. “Neither do I.” 

“You don’t like me?” 

“ _Myself_ , Terezi, I like you fine, you’re fine. No, it’s me. Under most circumstances, I don’t much like…” 

She trails off. 

“Perhaps,” Rose says at last, “it would be better if we kept this conversation to ourselves.” 

You snort. “Trust me, I was counting on it.” 

“The funny part, Terezi,” says Rose, “the funny part, is that if you came to me a few years ago, and you said, there are people with giant spiders in their basements, I would have said, at least giant spiders don’t pretend to care about your shitty drawings, that you did when you were ten, and tape them up on your fridge.” She laughs a little. It’s not a nice laugh. “Hell, I didn’t even need a Vriska to comprare… compare myself to, I had _Dave_ , I – oh, Terezi, do you ever _haaaaaaate_ your past self? Was that eight a’s?” 

“I would estimate seven,” you say with a slight smile. “And I am on great terms with my past, future and alternate selves. I would turn to Karkat for commiseration instead.” 

“Or maybe to you for advice. But then I guess you were actually…” Rose trails off. “I think the time has come for me to expel you from this room, before I say something I _really_ regret.” 

“From this room that does not belong to you,” you say flatly, but you’re getting up to leave already. 

“Good talk, Terezi,” she says softly as you leave. “Bad talk? _Greaaaaaaaaaat_ talk. Was that eight? I bet it wasn’t eight. This is stupid.” 

-

CURRENT tentacleTherapist [TT] RIGHT NOW opened memo on locked board KAYANA DATE PLAN STRATEGY MEETING

CCT has banned grimAuxiliatrix [GA] from viewing board  
CCT has banned turntechGodhead [TG] from viewing board  
CCT: Greentnigs, All.  
CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] responded to the memo.  
CCG: OH, FUCK.  
CCT: You’re probbably wondeirng why i Gathered you here today. And the reason is. Kanaya.  
CCT: Our favorite vampire.  
CCT: And before you criticize my slant rhyme....  
CCT: I’d like to see any of you do bebter. ;)  
CCT: Just pronounce it like ‘vampaya’.  
CCT: I am calinging an embergeycny stratetgety meeting!!!   
CCT: Which ist. A counsel of the three greatest troll minds Cin this unibvrse. Which is to say… three of the only troll minddfs in the unvierse!  
CCT: Uninverse.  
CCT: Univrererse.  
CCG: I’M CALLING DAVE.  
CCG: WHY IS HE EVEN BANNED HE’S NOT KANAYA AND HE’S UNLIKELY TO SNITCH   
CCT: DO NOT!   
CCT: He does not understahnd the importance of my missicion. He does not understand the impotrance of my metods!   
CCT: The purpose of this memo is.  
CCT: I am goingi to ask Kanaya out.   
CCT: And I need advice! Beubcause I don’t want to fuck it up :(  
CURRENT gallowsCalibrator responded to memo  
CGC: ROS3 TH1S 1S SO STUP1D  
CGC: 1 4LR34DY 4DV1S3D YOUR BROTH3R ON TH1S BULLSH1T 4 F3W MONTHS B4CK 4ND 1T W4SN'T 4NY MOR3 CONV1NC1NG TH3N TH4T H3 D1DN'T KNOW WH4T H3 W4S T4LK1NG 4BOUT  
CCG: DAVE ASKED YOU FOR ADVICE?? WHY?? ABOUT WHAT?   
CGC: SH1T  
CGC: UH 4SK H1M  
CCG: PLEASE TELL ME IT WASN’T ADVICE ON HOW TO ASK OUT KANAYA. PLEASE, TEREZI.  
CGC: NO 4ND 1 TH1NK YOU KNOW TH4T >:[  
CCT: This conversation is offf the raisl already. Which I guess was ti be expected !  
CURRENT arachnidsGrip [CAG] responded to memo.  
CAG: Hahahahahahahaha holy fuck.   
CAG: Terezi, is this what you’ve 8een looking at for the last ten minutes?   
CAG: We have work to do, come oooooooon.   
CTT: You guys are cute.  
CCT: I never say thsi in my ususual state! Or… St8. ;)  
CCT: But the way Virksa is the most emotiotnsally repressed being on this bithch of a meteor,  
CCT: And thats a number that includes me and Dave and Karktiat  
CAG: Lalonde, I’m warning you, I h8 where this is going already.  
CTT: But eveby time Terezi diverts her attention from Vriska for two seconds....  
CTT: She’s very much SHOCKED AND APPALLED! :D   
CTT: See I can use emtoticons and be fun like ajde  
CTT: I miss jdade :(   
CTT: I hoep I’m readign thsi right beccuaeuse what if I’m not and Vriska likkes Knayanaya??  
CTT: I dontn know if I cam compete with   
CTT: A socially impaired mass murderer.  
CCG: HOLY SHIT!!!  
CCG: THIS IS HILARIOUS, ARE YOU SURE I CAN’T TELL DAVE OR KANAYA  
CAG: Th8nks for all of that, Lalonde!!!!!!!!   
CAG: My feelings can’t even 8e hurt 8ecause in this state you’re too incomprehensi8le!   
CAG: Moreso than usual!  
CGC: VR1SK4... >:[  
CAG: Don’t ‘Vriskaaaaa ::::(‘ me! This is pathetic.   
CCG: AREN’T THE TWO OF YOU IN THE SAME FUCKING ROOM RIGHT NOW?  
CTT: This is not the purpose of this board!   
CTT: So far, Terezi is the onlty one of you to have givnen tual advcie.  
CTT: Karktat if I ask out Kanayta she WILL say yes right???   
CTT: Come ong youre sutpposed to be the expetr! :(  
CCG: HOLY SHIT, LALONDE, I THOUGHT YOU WERE SMART?  
CCG: WE DON’T NEED TO BE WIGGLERS ABOUT THIS.  
CCG: YES, ASK HER OUT, PLEASE, PUT THE REST OF US OUT OF OUR MISERY.  
CTT: Hypocrite! :)   
CCG: DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THAT’S MEANT TO IMPLY, BUT I THINK OUR TIME HERE IS DONE.  
FUTURE tentacleTherapist [FTT] 12 hours from now responded to memo.  
FTT: Oh, lord. I was hoping this part was an unpleasant dream.  
FTT: But for the record, I agree with Karkat.  
FTT: Everyone out, please.   
FTT: If any of you breathe a word of this to Kanaya or Dave, you will know the meaning of the word fear.  
FTT: I will find a way to willingly commune with the Horrorterrors and my childhood suicide mission to blow up a sun will begin to look like the child's play it was.   
FTT: H.P. Lovecraft’s extremely racist ghost will be weeping with envy in whatever miserable afterlife he resides in.  
CTT: Future me this is why nbobody likes us and we cant ask a grigil out after two fucciging years!!  
CTT: We’ree borign!!   
CTT: Adn in hte neww sesison…  
CTT: Mom’s gonna hhtink so too. :(  
FTT banned CTT from responding to the memo.  
FTT: That’s enough of that, I think.  
CCG: YEAH, I’M TELLING DAVE ABOUT THIS.   
FTT: Don’t. Please.   
FTT: I give you guys the benefit of the doubt on cultural troll shit,   
CAG: No you don’t! You fuss and meddle just like your m8sprit!!!!!!!  
FTT banned CAG from responding to memo.  
FTT: Not in the mood, Vriska, sorry.   
CGC: Fuck you, Lalonde!!!!!!!!  
FTT banned CGC from responding to memo.  
FTT: And give Terezi her phone back.   
FTT: Karkat, it’s just you and me now.  
FTT: Do I have to give you a lecture on human cultural contexts, or will I have to trust that you can mind your own business?   
CCG: FUCK, ROSE, WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY?  
CCG: I ONLY SAID I WOULD CONTACT DAVE BECAUSE YOU STOPPED BEING FUNNY AND STARTED TO SEEM UPSET.  
FTT: All a natural side-effect of the process, Karkat.   
FTT: I promise I’m fine. Or was fine. Twelve hours ago.   
FTT: We have a deal, then?   
CCG: ...SURE, I GUESS.   
FTT: Good.

FTT blocked CCG from responding to memo.  
FTT blocked FTT from responding to memo.

-

Two weeks before the second year of travel ends, a few nights after Rose’s bizarre memo, Vriska’s head pokes out of her recuperacoon without warning; you only know it by the goopy sound of moving sopor, and then by the bleary “Terezi?” 

“Mm,” you say in acknowledgement, looking over at her from where you’re lying on her floor, from which you haven’t moved in the last four hours. 

“I thought you went back to your block.” 

“Got caught up,” you say, which is better than _I didn’t want to leave, but didn’t want to ask to stay._

Even under the sopor in her hair, she smells unimpressed. “Caught up in what?” 

“Thinking.” 

She drags herself out. “Vriska, you’ll get slime on my clothes,” you say in weak protest, but she’s already sitting down behind you and pulling her arms around you so tightly it almost hurts. 

“Everything’s fucked up,” she says, very quietly. “Lalonde is clearly fucking with something she shouldn’t be fucking with, and I'll bet Kanaya's upset about it.” 

“You’re worried about them.” 

“Maybe I am! Lalonde is kind of central to our success, and I feel like I owe it to Fussyfangs to make sure her post-Serket Light player isn’t a cosmic fucking disaster,” says Vriska. There is a long silence in which her chin is sharp against your shoulder, and her breathing just on the edge of unsteady. 

“Worried about _you_ , too,” she says at last. 

“Don’t be,” you say, and she sighs. 

“Knew you’d say that.” 

There’s a long silence. Her hands are cold, and the sopor in her hair is, indeed, dripping down onto your clothes. You are tired enough that nothing feels fully real. 

At last, you whisper, “It’s just that I don’t know what’s wrong.” 

“Right,” she says, voice small enough that you think the darkness could swallow it up. “I figured. Figured you liked me enough that you’d tell me if you were able to.” 

You’re not sure she’s telling the truth, but that’s surely not worth thinking about too hard. “Yeah,” you say instead, squeezing her hand, because hearing her sound that uncertain because of bullshit _you’re_ pulling feels like a stab to the pusher. “Yeah, of course I’d tell you.” 

“I want to fix it,” says Vriska fiercely. “All of it. The other you –” 

“The other me didn’t anticipate that I would be a mess sometimes even if nothing was wrong,” you say. “That’s not within your control, Vriska. That’s on me. It’ll pass, anyway.” 

Vriska breathes in, and you are morbidly curious as to what comments to you she is biting back. She says, at last, “Well, I want to try anyway. I’m your moirail, aren’t I?” 

You don’t see the point of arguing with her about whether it’s possible for her to physically fight whatever baseless unhappiness you feel. And anyway, _that_ thought makes you smile. “Of course you are,” you say softly, and fumble with your hands until you’ve formed two fingers in a V shape and poked them softly against the flesh of her arm. Snorting fondly, she lets go of you long enough to complete the diamond with her own hand. 

“We should sleep,” she says, and you’ve learned to read her well enough to know she is asking you to stay. She watches you as you take off your glasses. You don’t need to smell her closely to know she has a look of concentration on her face, like she’s gearing up for a difficult FLARP match. 

“Don’t worry about me,” you say quietly as she’s stepping towards the recuperacoon. “Please.” 

She leans forward and, yeah, there’s the look. Instead of saying anything, she kisses the corner of your lips, and despite yourself, you feel some tension escape you. Before you know you’re doing it, you’ve thrown your arms around her and buried your face in her shirt, even though a film of sopor still clings to it. 

You take a long, shuddering breath. Then another.

“You were saying, Pyrope?” she asks, smug, and then undercuts her tone of voice entirely by gently patting your hair. “Let’s go to sleep, come on.” 

A meteor hurtles through the space of the Furthest Ring. Nothing is what it was, and there are no indications that anything will be okay, aside perhaps from the predictions of a faraway dead version of you that you’ll never understand or compare to. You fly towards a fixed point that you can’t predict, and even in this reprieve, you find happiness eluding you. But time runs out. The end of your second year is weeks away, and you don’t know where you’ll be when the third is gone, too.

You are, in short, more lost than ever. But for now, she holds you all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a work of fanfiction. any resemblances to real-life events, people, or opinions are purely coincidental. except rose and vriska's opinions on love actually, those are mine. and rose's crush on emma thompson. that's mine, too.
> 
> if this has goofy grammar/formatting errors blame homestuck 2 updating midway through me coding this and expect me to sneakily fix them tonight. or point and laugh at me in the comments if you're into that i guess. 
> 
> and as ever, thank you for reading <3


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just tell me I’m twice the gamer your coolgirl ancestor is,” Vriska says with a wheedling note in her voice.
> 
> “I am not doing that,” you tell her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this one: condescending-type ableism in the 'kankri being a shithead' way, and continued canon-compliant depictions of teenage alcoholism

Exactly two years out from the Green Sun, exactly one year away from the new session, you wake up in the evening to find that Vriska is gone, even having spent the day at yours. There is no two-year strategy meeting tonight; that was the night before, and there were no human ‘toasts’, regardless of Rose’s capacity to actualize them. 

You do have texts from Vriska, however. 

AG: Meet me on the o8servation deck. You know the one.  
AG: Happy two years of no8ody killing each other.  
AG: (The offer stands for Gamzee! It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.)  
AG: Learned that saying from Lalonde and I find it very useful ::::) 

When you climb out onto the deck, the intense mint-and-cotton-candy glow of impending dream bubbles hits you all at once, and you have to put a hand over your nose until you’re used to it. Vriska is a small blueberry-saltbreeze outline against their soapy walls, towering higher than the meteor itself. You’ve seen clusters of the things before, but this might be the largest one, enough so that you can barely smell the blackness of the Furthest Ring behind you or the cracks forming in it above your heads. 

“It’s going to be a weird couple of weeks,” you say, making your way to where Vriska’s facing the iridescent wall before her.

“Truer words have never been spoken,” says Vriska, but as far as you can tell, she does not move her face away from the dream bubbles to look at you. “Do you know what’s inside? Because I’ve got inside info.” 

“Of course you do,” you sigh. “You’ve been dropping hints about them for the past week, Vriska, spill already.” 

“Word on the street is –” 

“Word on the street? What street, Vriska, we’re in space!” 

“It’s a figure of _speech_ – !” 

“You can just _say_ ‘Aradia told me’ –” 

“ _Word on the street_ , Terezi, is that our ancestors are in this dream bubble!” 

You blink. Their presence in the Furthest Ring is not news to you; more and more often, these days, you’ve stumbled into dream bubbles that you know could not have belonged to anybody from your session. The rock of what you think must have been the pink moon of the Alternian homeworld, cheerfully lit streets in cities you’d never heard of, familiar and yet alien. You know that the answer has something to do with a set of twelve figures who are kind of your ancestors, and kind of not. 

You have not yet met any of them. 

“They’re - Redglare, and Mindfang, and everyone else, but from another version of Alternia, right?” 

“Yeah,” says Vriska. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s, like… a soft, cuddly version of our world. A boring one, for babies. Those two and the others - they all played Sgrub and couldn’t win. Wonder fucking why.” 

Her laugh is harsh; as ever, these days, there is something she’s not telling you, some part of her thought process she’s carefully keeping to himself. 

“Might have been nice, though,” you say cautiously, “not worrying about getting culled.” 

Vriska sighs and sits down on the cold concrete; you sit down next to her and take another sniff at the ever-looming dream bubbles, but there’s not much you can make out behind their walls. 

“Far as Megido says, it wasn’t actually any better than Alternia, okay?” she says at last. “Or, okay, obviously a little better. I’m not stupid, okay, I know Alternia sucked. But I wouldn’t… the other world still had problems, it... It’s all – fuck it, I know Alternian history, not _fake_ Alternian history. So I guess we’ll find out.” 

“I guess we will.” You reach out and take her hand. “Hey, Vriska, it’s been a while since we had a good dream bubble.” 

“You make a point.” You’ve managed now, at least, to get a little smile out of her. “So long as you’re not nervous about meeting watered-down Redglare.” 

“Long as you’re not nervous about watered-down Mindfang,” you say, even as you wonder whether somebody, somewhere, is thinking of _you_ as ‘watered-down Terezi.’

“Dear god, never. Plus, apparently she’s fucking MIA, so no ancestor fun for me.” You can’t tell if she sounds disappointed or relieved. “I’ll just have to witness the rest of your heartwarming reunions. Hey, are we telling Redglare that you spent your young years roleplaying under her name?” 

“Not if you want to exit this dream bubble alive, Serket,” you grin. 

-

When Latula Pyrope is talking, though, it is hard to think of her as ‘Redglare’ at all. 

You smell the tall figure in a disconcertingly familiar teal-and-red outfit amid the grape-flavored halls of what must be a Dersian palace. Even amid these colors, you can smell the crisp white of her grin across the room; then there’s a rattle of skateboard wheels and the figure is standing in front of you. 

“DAMN, you’re back!” she says, and her voice is loudly melodious; instead of your standard, which tends to be amused competence, or offputting familiarity, her voice betrays nothing but raw enthusiasm. “I didn’t think you’d come back. Is your human matesprit with the sunglasses around, too? I didn’t get the chance to talk to him last time, but he looked _so_ radical.” 

You miss most of what she’s saying to you, because you’re too busy trying to reconcile the figure in front of you with you and Vriska’s books full of drawings of Neophyte Redglare. Early in your Flarp days, you had spent hours practicing the seriousness and gravitas with which a legislacerative prodigy would have carried herself. Latula seems to you like a betrayal of this effort. 

It falls to Vriska, then, to loftily say, “Dave is not and has never been Terezi’s human matesprit, but I’m her troll moirail, and I’m miles cooler than Strider. Nice to meet you.” 

She extends a hand, at the same time as Latula raises hers for a high five. “No need to be boring about it,” your dancestor says, while you’re still doing some emergency recalibrating concerning... everything about her personality. “Up high, little Serket, come on!” 

The ensuing high five leaves Vriska with a yelp of pain. She elbows you, and the two of you threaten to dissolve into inopportune laughter at the joke that you know has just formed itself in both your heads: _Is this how this world’s Mindfang lost an arm?_

“What’s so –” Latula starts, and for a second she sounds, for the first time, almost uncertain of herself. Then she pauses, and says, “You guys are adorable! You and your inside jokes. Hey, with all due respect, Serket, didn’t you used to be dead?” 

“No?” says Vriska. 

“You totally used to be dead. Hey, there’s a ghost of you running around with Meenah, actually! Haven’t seen them in a while, but last I heard they made an adorable couple.” 

It’s Vriska’s turn to buffer, this time, and you cut in with the concern that’s been pressing at your mind from the very start of this conversation. “You mean to say you _met_ us? In the other timeline? But that – how long ago was that, exactly?” 

“Hey, we’re _Mind_ players, leave the time shit to the Megidos,” says Latula. “They’re the only ones crazy enough to track that shit in the Furthest Ring anyway. Feels like forever, also feels like a few weeks. Up high!”

Your palm might never be the same again. Vriska elbows you again, as if to say, _now we’re even_. You think the phrase _high five revenge cycle_ and get another urge to laugh. 

Latula is likeable, though, for all that her presence is slightly overwhelming. She’s willing to dish out gossip on Meenah when Vriska finally asks who the fuck she is, and you find yourself envying the effortless consequence she carries herself with, the way she can apparently _survive_ being this friendly. Maybe you were like this once, too – for a given, murder-threat-laden measure of _friendly,_ at least. But while you’re as able as ever to pull up that part of yourself, it feels like as much of a hollow performance as when you were being Redglare. 

“I want to clarify that Meenah is not by any means _radder_ than me,” Latula is saying, seeming to view this topic as a subject of cosmic importance. “She’s got a punk thing going on, which she pulls off great, mad respect, and I’m more in the epic gamer girl category." Once more, a flash of brilliant teeth. 

You can tell Vriska’s about to ask something disparaging about why the fuck her ghost is fucking around with the ghost of Her Imperious Condescension (because the aforementioned Meenah is also _that_ , and if that isn’t the biggest mindfuck you’ve encountered all day –) when a new figure strides up beside Latula. You almost think it's Karkat for a second, before the sharp candy smell of his sweater hits you all at once, and you know it’s _not_ him. 

You turn your attention to him. “Mr. Vantas, I presume?” 

“It’s rather problematic to assume my identity on the basis of the cultural norm of wearing the color of one’s hemotype,” he sniffs, sounding so unlike Karkat that you nearly drop your cane. For one thing, he appears to have discovered his indoor voice; for another, you’ve heard Karkat yell all manner of insults at everyone who would listen, but you have never heard him talk down to you. “But you do happen to be correct. Terezi Pyrope, I presume? Again?” 

“If you met me, it was in another timeline,” you say. “So I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.” 

“Oh! My sincere apologies for engaging in timeline normativity,” he says, very seriously, so seriously that you have to bite back a smile. (Vriska fails; you hear her snort.) “It won’t happen again. I’m Kankri Vantas, though in your world you’ll have remembered me as the Sufferer, unfair as it is for me to claim credit for the achievements of someone whom I only overlap with in terms of genetics. Also, apologies for not issuing warnings for implied mentions of torture and state-sanctioned execution.” 

“It’s… it’s fine.” Vriska is _definitely_ stifling laughter beside you, and you’re pretty sure she’s doing a bad job of it on purpose.

Kankri doesn’t seem to take your reticence personally. “I assume that you and Latula have already discussed your extensive common ground?” he asks. “In her, I’ve always admired her inspirational independence in the face of our society’s culling of the disabled, and I am sure that, had our world survived, she would have eventually proven that such coddling was not necessary. From my past interactions with the other young Pyrope – your other self, to use the conventional terminology – I had gathered that you served in a similarly inspirational capacity.” 

“ _Inspirational_ ,” Vriska repeats icily, which you translate into, “Can you believe this guy?” 

Which you can’t. Not really. Latula smells distinctly embarrassed beside him. Still, though, that can wait, because – “Did I hear you right when you said _culling_?” you say. 

Vriska and Latula let out audible groans. _Rookie mistake, Terezi_. 

“Yes, that was a terrible act of Beforan normativity on my part,” says Kankri, who sounds like he’s positively _beaming_ , before setting off into an extensive explanation of the norms of Beforan society. 

Which, with all due respect to the fact that you’re very grateful that you’re not trapped in a dream bubble with the guy, _are_ screwed up on multiple levels; you can almost see how he got this way, verbose and self-righteous and bursting with a desire to prove himself. 

In another world, you think, hard as it is to be charitable to the person delivering you a vaguely condescending lecture, who also just called you fucking _inspirational_ , this man leads the most dangerous rebellion in the history of your home planet. Here, he is only a few years older than you, and talking at you in a way that makes you almost feel sorry for him. 

Latula had mentioned she and her friends have been in these dream bubbles for thousands of years. You sniff her teal outline standing behind Kankri, dutifully silent while he talks. You wonder what it is about _her_ that you are not seeing. 

Vriska clears her throat loudly behind you. “Hey. Vantas-the-prequel. Vantas-the-sequel? Whoever you are. Isn’t it pretty, uh, problematic of you to keep Terezi and her ancestor from talking one-on-one?” 

Kankri blanches. “Well, as impolite as it is to interrupt – Miss Serket? I’m afraid you might have a point. Latula, did you wish to –” 

He gestures to the space between the two of you. “If there are any sensitive topics you wish to discuss in private, I would be more than happy to facilitate a safe space for the two of you,” he says, and tugs Vriska by the arm. “In the meantime, _you_ can fill Terezi in on the further details of the problems inherent in the system of Beforan society –” 

“Vriska can stay –” you say, slightly alarmed at subjecting her to this, but she pats you on the shoulder. 

“I can handle myself, it’s fine!” You think you smell her wink, which does not bode well. And then you and Latula are alone, which… was not something you especially anticipated. 

“Kankri is a lot sometimes,” she says apologetically, and she’s not looking at you. “Uh, sorry.” 

She sounds a bit more subdued, and a bit more approachable as a result. Less untouchably _cool_ , more like somebody you can envision yourself having a real conversation with. 

“Do you want to sit down?” you ask, gesturing to the purple floor below you, and she agrees, though you notice she sits on her skateboard, legs kicked out in a pose that wouldn’t be out-of-place on one of the pictures you’d edited Dave onto. 

You sit down directly on the floor, like a regular troll. Or maybe you’ve bonded with it in an extensive capacity, after all the hours you and Vriska spent on the floor of each others’ blocks. 

“Don’t think of him too badly,” says Latula after the two of you have been quiet a bit too long. “He’s – well, we’ve all been here for a long, long time, you know? Used to be different.” 

“I figured,” you say, and you must give the impression of sniffing her a little too closely, because she lets out a nervous laugh. 

“Hah, I mean, some of us used to be different. I’m pretty much the same. Rad as ever!” 

“What do you think you would have done, if you hadn’t played Sgrub?” you ask, ignoring the misdirection, and then wince. “With your life, that is. I mean, if that’s too personal, you don’t have to say, but –” 

“It’s fine! You’re thinking about the other me, right? The one who, like, cut Aranea’s arm off or something. Aranea Serket. Huh, haven’t seen her in ages. Can’t say I’ve missed her, but wonder where she went.” For a moment, Latula pauses to think. “I don’t know. I thought I’d – yeah, I guess I never really got the chance to think about it. Teals tended to work in social services. You know, files and shit. So some of that, but I always agreed with Kankri that the whole system kind of sucked, so maybe I thought I’d speak out against that somehow. Don’t know how, though.” 

You sit for a moment, thinking. “So Beforus assigned jobs by caste, too.” 

“Sometimes! Not all the time. But yeah. That’s another thing Kankri took issue with. Said we ought to be able to choose.” 

“Our Vantas is nothing like him, you know,” you say, without quite knowing why. “I mean – he _also_ talks a lot, but instead of talking he’s mostly yelling, and he’s funnier.” 

“The two of you _like_ each other, don’t you?” says Latula and you notice she sounds a lot more comfortable now than she did discussing herself. “Kankri told me you guys did, last time around.” 

“Do you perhaps think he was just projecting?” you say, and while she sputters about the unlikelihood of that fact, file this fact away in the mess of conflicting data you have on your other self. Dave, Karkat, _Gamzee._ For _fuck’s_ sake. 

“And in this universe, it’s you and Serket? That’s pretty sweet. Or are you just moirails, sorry, I forgot.” 

“Just moirails,” you say, and then, for some _godforsaken_ reason (maybe it’s that some part of you sees her as Redglare after all, recognizes the ancestral in her, wants to be honest with her even though there’s no _way_ you’re seeing any aspects of her real self), “I mean… for now.” 

“Thinking of vacillating, huh? Well, I’m sure you have the moves to pull it off,” Latula says, elbowing you conspiratorially, and you _guess_ it’s nice, in a sense, but the thought _real self_ has triggered, once more, a futile intent to figure out exactly _who_ this dancestor of yours is. 

Because either she’s _normal_ , either this coolgirl persona is exactly who she is, or she’s exactly like you: nothing of substance inside her, just whatever convincing act she’s found most useful.

“I meant to ask,” she says, “when I talked to you in the other timeline, you seemed like you weren’t doing too hot. So are you – are you okay? Hah, this is embarrassing, stop me if it’s uncool, which it is, but – I talked to Porrim, and she said I should ask if I got the chance –” 

“My other self probably _wasn’t_ doing too hot!” you say, because Latula sounds wildly out of her element. In the Latula-Redglare comparison chart you have floating abstractly in your head, you put _probably not enthused by the prospect of talking to you about your feelings_ down as a commonality. “But I’m doing well. Uh – having Vriska helps. I killed her in the other timeline, you know, just like Mindfang killed the other you, and – um, it sucked. Apparently. Actually, I know it sucked, because I can’t stand the thought –” 

At this point Latula rescues you by exclaiming, “Wow!” You breathe a sigh of relief. “I don’t know if anything like that happened in our session. Well – no, our session pretty much sucked, too, but the only actual _perma-death_ was when Meenah blew us all up to preserve our consciousnesses.” She looks away from you. “We, uh, we would have just faded away forever. So she did us all a favor, really! Now we can just – be radical, in the afterlife, indefinitely!” 

It doesn’t sound radical. For a moment, her voice wavers enough that you don’t think _she_ thinks it’s radical either. You let yourself imagine what she was like when she was alive and unfrozen in time. You _do_ see it in her, even in what you’re starting to realize might only be a shade; Redglare’s intelligence and her determination, and an urge to protect her friends that you always attributed to the Neophyte in your roleplaying games, even though you’re not sure the real-life version had any friends at all.

The other you had met her, and been unhappy. You wonder if she’d compared herself to Latula and found herself wanting. You wonder if she’d _hated_ Latula, just a bit, for the person she was in the other timeline. The other Terezi had killed Vriska, after all, and it would have been tempting to think that Redglare and Mindfang had started this whole damn thing anyway, that it was trying to be Redglare that had gotten her into this mess –

But here and now, you know that you and Vriska could always have chosen (did choose, had chosen as children and now chose again) to have nothing to do with the Pyrope-Serket revenge scheme at all. And here and now you are too busy not measuring up to an alternate version of yourself to worry about measuring up to an alternate Redglare, no matter _how_ cool her skateboard is. 

“Terezi?” she asks. “You totally spaced out on me there.” 

“Yes,” you say, nonsensically. “Uh, Latula – I should probably rescue Vriska, actually, but – it was nice talking to you. And my other self, I don’t think you should feel bad about her. I doubt you were the problem.” 

This is all you do now, apparently. Try to parse out the motivations of a girl you’ve never met, but apparently have the capacity to become. 

“I feel bad, though,” she says. “If I upset her –” 

“She died, in the end,” you interrupt, and don’t know why you say it. “She died and she changed the timeline to bring Vriska back. So I guess all I’m trying to say is, in the end, she had much worse to worry about than being jealous of your skate tricks.” 

“ _Jealous_ of – hah, I mean, who wouldn’t be?” There’s that nervous laugh again. You hate Latula just a little, hate her for making you wonder if _your_ fragility is this easy for anyone who looks twice at you to read. “Hey, nice to meet you.” 

You’re not sure if she means it, but she claps you on the shoulder and says that maybe the two of you will catch up later, and when she says _that_ you notice the edge of a request in the words. 

“Yeah, sure,” you say, softer than you mean to. 

Eternity is a lonely place.

Vriska is still with Kankri, shockingly enough, sitting in a Prospitian palace and smelling distinctly exhausted. When she sees you, she runs over to you and takes you by both hands. 

“Hey, Terezi and I need to have an, uh, feelings jam,” Vriska says. “I’m that moved by your speech. Might never be the same. Bye!” 

“Vriska,” you say when the two of you have found an empty corner of the dream bubble – some lawn ring, you think it may be Karkat’s. “That might be the most heroic thing I’ve ever seen you do.” 

“And it’s the most heroic thing I’ll ever do again,” she says, flopping down onto the grass and resting her head in your lap. “You’re fucking welcome, Pyrope. Actually, it could have been worse, once I realized he wasn’t really expecting me to listen. He talked at me about Beforus for a while, then started to argue with himself about whether someone did something wrong? Or nothing wrong? I’m not sure. Anyway, I tuned it out. Made me miss _our_ Vantas, though, his arguing with himself is a little more colorful.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

“What about Latula?” asks Vriska, and you shrug. 

“Okay. She’s not – she’s older than us, but not _that_ much older, you know? It’s not the same as meeting Redglare, any more than Kankri’s the same as the Sufferer.” 

“She seems fun, though,” says Vriska. “More fun than Vantas-the-prequel. Bit of a tryhard with her whole gamer shtick, though, huh? How good can she be? I bet we would have kicked her ass at FLARP.” 

“Yes,” you say, more fondly than you mean to, “because I’m pretty sure _her_ version of FLARP lacked the _fatal_ part, genius.” 

“Just tell me I’m twice the gamer your coolgirl ancestor is,” Vriska says with a wheedling note in her voice.

“I am not doing that,” you tell her, and lean down to kiss her on the nose, leading to a screech of protest.

Later in the afternoon, you meet up with Rose and Kanaya in a field of robotic horses, and get to _pretend_ you don’t notice Vriska checking out the daring cut of Kanaya’s ancestor’s dress. You find Dave and Karkat and the Mayor playing cards with more ancestors in a memory of your treehouse, and Vriska pouts a little about how this was supposed to be _your_ place to hang out, to which Dave says, “No private property in dream bubbles, Vris, Troll Karl Marx said so. Hey, Karkat, is that you? Are you troll Karl Marx? With the sickles –” and the two of you escape the tree before the daily Strider-Vantas vaudeville act begins in earnest. 

You are _not_ there when Rose, apparently, asks Kanaya out, but Dave is, because he texts you. 

TG: holy shit  
TG: rose actually asked out her fucking vampire girlfriend  
TG: unless theyre already dating and being sneaky about it  
TG: but she like  
TG: formally was like “are you doing anything tonight”  
TG: instead of just accosting kanaya in the common room  
TG: which i think in lalonde speak means “lets hold hands on a ferris wheel while drinking the same milkshake and then i will have your adorable human/troll hybrid babies”  
TG: grubs?  
TG: come on tz i know you and vriska love this gossip bullshit wheres a mans reward for intel  
GC: 3XC3LL3NT WORK 1NSP3CTOR STR1D3R  
GC: 4 PROMOT1ON M4Y B3 1N TH3 WORKS

“Fucking _finally_ ,” says Vriska when you show her your palmhusk.

-

Later in the night, the cluster of dream bubbles moves in such a way that, at long last, the parts of the meteor the seven of you congregate in are largely ancestor-free. Vriska has convinced you to watch yet another shitty human action movie with her, and so the two of you make your way down through the hallways to the common area. 

“Was it weird, meeting Redglare?” she asks suddenly. “Like, do you even feel like you gained anything out of it?” 

“I don’t know if we can call her Redglare,” you answer thoughtfully. “Her name’s Latula. Never got another name, and she’s not the same person at all.” 

Vriska snorts. “Fuck no she isn’t. God, I almost feel sorry for all those poor assholes. Every last one of them’s kind of insufferable.” 

“I liked Porrim,” you say, not sure where your impulse to defend them all is coming from. You feel as if someone has given you a duty to remember the shades of your ancestors not for what they are but for what they were, or for what they could have become. This is a remembrance, you are nearly sure, that at least some of them deserve. 

“Porrim was cool,” Vriska agrees. “But still, she doesn’t hold a candle to _our_ Maryam.” There’s a warmth and pride in her voice, a conviction in her friends’ excellence that you wish Vriska-skeptics of the Karkat variety could hear. And at the same time, the naked fondness in her voice leaves a curl of unease in the pit of your stomach, followed by intense self-disgust at the mere fact of it being there. 

“No,” you say. “After all, their Ampora made it through the session without getting bisected.” 

“God, he was _awful_ ,” Vriska says with feeling. “Teen Dualscar! A nightmare incarnate. I’m starting to think that Mindfang just had really shitty tast–” 

She’s broken off because, upon your entrance to the common room, Kanaya bolts up from the couch and turns around. She smells like the deep green of spring grass in your forest, and bright hope, and apprehension, and a little more than usual of the flowery hair product she uses. 

Also, when she sees the two of you, intense disappointment. 

“Speak of the Handmaid,” says Vriska, “we were just talking about you.” 

“Hm,” says Kanaya noncommittally, sitting back down, and you frown. There was a period in your first year where Kanaya would avoid encounters with Vriska at all costs, but the two of them are _friends_ now - you think Kanaya might be more consistently friendly with Vriska than anyone on this meteor aside from you. 

“Fuck, Fussyfangs, are you okay?” says Vriska, and Kanaya stiffens. 

“Yes, obviously,” she says. 

This is a meteor full of _liars_. 

Vriska walks over to sit down on the couch next to her. “I thought you had your hot date with Lalonde tonight,” she says, which is _so_ evidently the wrong thing to say that Kanaya actually laughs. “Fuck, did she ditch you? If she ditched you, I’ll –” 

“We can do without threats of violence, Vriska,” Kanaya says sternly, but she definitely sounds nervous. “Also Rose didn’t _ditch_ me. If she were to have changed her mind about tonight, for some reason, which, by the way, I don’t recall telling you about, she has enough respect for me to let me know.” 

“Yes, Lalonde _is_ decent like that, isn’t she,” says Vriska. “Then what the hell’s wrong?” 

“Rose is just… a bit late,” says Kanaya. “It is unusual. I’m sure there are extenuating –” 

“How late?” 

“An hour, but –” 

Vriska stands up so fast that all you smell is a blur of blue. “Fuck that! Finding her right _now_!” she calls, and then she’s left you and Kanaya sitting next to each other on the couch. 

When she’s gone, Kanaya slumps down – it’s a position you’ve very rarely seen her assume – and gives out a long, long sigh. 

“And I thought my life could not get _more_ complicated,” she says. 

“Vriska wants to help,” you say distantly. “She thinks the world of you, you know.” 

Kanaya fixes you with a strange expression. “I somehow don’t think Vriska is cut out for the realm of the interpersonal.”

“You’d be surprised,” you shrug. “She’s a good moirail.” Then pause, remember who you’re talking to. “Uh, right now.” 

“I know,” says Kanaya. “Really, I do. And you don’t need to sound like that – she and I were six, and I added my own share of problems to the equation. I’m over it. We both are.” 

“I know you are,” you say, and you might have emphasized the _you_ too much, for all that you didn’t mean to do so, because Kanaya lets out a huff; you are sure that her excellent eyebrows have shot all the way up. 

“Terezi, I’m not sure if you’re antagonizing me on _purpose_ , but I’m –” 

“I wasn’t,” you say. Then, quietly: “Sorry.” 

A moment of silence. “We should probably check on our Light players,” you say, and she follows suit when you stand. You both fall unconsciously into walking to the library, as the most likely place Rose and Vriska could have ended up, or at least as a less-intimidating alternative to knocking on the door of Rose’s block. 

You don’t actually witness the Great Serket-Lalonde Intervention Of The End Of Year Two, because when Kanaya gets a glimpse of them through the door, she looks at you and says, quietly, “I don’t ask a lot of you, not often. Can you _please_ not come in there?”

You will realize later that it’s to minimize spectacle for Rose’s sake, but for now you shrug and lean against the far wall. “Vriska will fill me in anyway,” you say. 

Vriska _does_ fill you in, by striding out of the room a few minutes later, grabbing your arm, and pulling you down the hallway. “She was _drunk_!” she says. “Which is the human word for ‘consuming human soporifics’ or whatever stupid lengthy phrase we’ve been using to distance ourselves from the fact that she’s _clearly_ sabotaging her own potential! Who the fuck knows what it’s been doing to her powers, _and_ it upset Fussyfangs!” 

“Vriska, that sounds bad, but you didn’t – yell at her too much? The success of this mission kind of depends on the two of you getting along –” 

“I yelled at her the appropriate amount,” says Vriska, which is not necessarily reassuring. She seems to see your expression, and sighs. “I spoke in a stern raised voice to her and also knocked down her cup of shady alchemized liquid, okay, which was very cinematic and made a very effective point! It was pitch-perfect ashen conduct! Though I guess I wasn’t auspisticizing her with anyone. Except, like, herself.” 

You smile despite yourself. “Where did you even pick up all this conciliatory talent, Vriska? Have you been stealing Karkat’s movies and watching them at odd hours?” 

“Fuck you, maybe I had it in me all along,” she says, and kisses you as if to prove it. For a moment nothing matters except how softly her closed lips are pressing against yours, and the tightness of her grip on your arm in contrast to this fact. Then she lets you go, and you smile up at her for a few moments. 

Then you say, out of _fucking_ nowhere, “Are you flushed for Kanaya?” 

Vriska stares at you in silence for a few moments like you’re an idiot, which, to be fair, you might be. “ _Am I flushed for Kanaya_ , she says! I just helped Kanaya shack up with the girl she’s been moony-eyed over longer than she’s been slicing genocidal fishboys in half. Lalonde refused to cancel, by the way, the date is still happening, all thanks to yours truly, and _you’re_ asking if I’m flushed for Kanaya!” 

Her scent and what you’re picking up of her tone of voice hides nothing but genuine bafflement. It is _embarrassing_ how relieved you are, and embarrassing how long you realize you’ve wondered about this. 

“Why are you even asking?” Vriska asks, squinting at you suspiciously. “Are _you_ flushed for Kanaya?” 

“No!” 

“What about Strider and Vantas, are you secretly sad about them only having weird human bromancey quadrant-hopping eyes for each other?” 

“Fuck you, _definitely_ not!” 

“Excellent,” says Vriska, and kisses you again, this time an exaggerated one on your cheek. “We’ve asked each other the night’s share of stupid questions.”

You lick her face as revenge, or possibly to distract her from your own stupidity, which leads to an outraged half-yell that gets drowned out in your laughter.

Later, when you’re watching the movie after all, you wonder if she knows what she’s reassuring you about, wonders if the cheerfulness with which she throws out the phrase ‘quadrant-hopping’ carried an underlying accusation you don’t know how to face. Probably not, you decide. Vriska is many things, but subtle is not one of them. 

Halfway through the movie, you tell her to hit pause and show her the conversation Karkat had initiated with you ten minutes ago.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

CG: SO I SHOULD CLARIFY THAT NEVER IN MY MISERABLE SEVEN SWEEPS IN THIS MULTIVERSE DID I THINK THIS DAY WILL COME  
CG: BUT I AM PASSING DOWN A MESSAGE OF THANKS  
CG: OR RATHER I AM ACTING ON DAVE’S DELIVERING A WEIRD DISTRESSED MONOLOGUE PART OF WHICH AMOUNTED TO “i couldnt ever tell vriska this or even terezi because theyre basically the same person but i guess if you could tell terezi to tell vriska shes got her moments and probably has more guts than all the rest of us, like don’t tell her i said so or anything, but just as an abstract statement of appreciation, so abstract that douchebags at the museum are declaring their kids could make a statement like that” AND THEN A WHOLE BUNCH OF OTHER BULLSHIT  
GC: SO L3T M3 G3T TH1S STR41GHT  
GC: D4V3 TOLD YOU TO T3LL M3 TO T3LL VR1SK4 TH4T H3'S GL4D SH3 TOLD H1S S1ST3R TO STOP CONSUM1NG HUM4N SOPOR1F1CS  
GC: K4RK4T DO3S TH1S NOT S33M L1K3 TOO M4NY ST3PS  
CG: ACTUALLY I THINK IT’S A PRETTY NATURAL FUCKING NUMBER OF LEVELS OF REMOVE  
CG: WE’RE TALKING ‘ADMITTING THAT VRISKA DID ONE THING RIGHT’ HERE  
CG: IF IT WERE ME I WOULD HAVE CYCLED IT THROUGH EVERYONE ON THIS FUCKING METEOR  
GC: VR1SK4 D1D S3V3R4L TH1NGS R1GHT 4CTU4LLY >:P  
CG: WOW KEEP IT TO YOURSELF I DON’T NEED TO SEE YOUR FLAGRANT PALE DISPLAYS  
GC: H4H4H4 YOU 4R3 4S H1L4R1OUS 4S 3V3R  
GC: T3LL D4V3 1 W1LL P4SS ON H1S UN1NSP1R1NG M3SS4GE

“Aw, you think I did a few things right, _and_ Strider’s confessed his love for me? Today is an unmitigated success for the Serket line,” she says, and you stick your tongue out at her from where you’ve claimed Lying Down In Lap privileges for the night. She ruffles your hair fondly, and you smile. At times like this, you find yourself briefly wishing that the meteor journey could extend itself by another few years.

By the end of the movie, Vriska shows you a message of her own.

tentacleTherapist [TT] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]

TT: Don’t estimate the difficulty I tend to have in telling people what I’m about to tell you:  
TT: Thank you.  
TT: That is all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing kankri is fun because i get to write like my fourteen year old self trying to fill in word count on an essay, if my fourteen year old self was even worse than she actually was. also, had the thought the other day that "redglare" and "mindfang" (as well as "darkleer" and "dualscar") are valid warrior cat names. do with this information what you will. 
> 
> also, the only reason there was a semi-functional dancestor chapter in this fanfic is [this](https://medium.com/@ThePantsDJ/the-ridiculous-adventures-of-mspa-reader-in-hussnasty-hell-5a6ed3b97ec1) excellent essay on medium, which definitely opened my mind about the cosmic horror potential of their situation
> 
> whether vriska is lying to herself about being flushed for kanaya is entirely up to audience interpretation ;3
> 
> finally, wrote this chapter instead of reading some chapters of a room of one's own for my women and modernism class. #WWVWS about this? she would say, obviously, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write homestuck fanfiction. or she can also sit outside her town's public library to steal its wifi, having left the house under the pretense of doing homework."


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It doesn’t actually even make sense, how you’d think one and not the other,” she says, and now she almost sounds genuinely angry. “Like – if you think you’re a bad person for trying to kill me, then what the fuck am – what the fuck is she? You’ve got to pick one, Terezi.” 
> 
> You note the slip, not that you know what to do with it.
> 
> \- 
> 
> A swordfight, an ancestor, and lots of uncomfortable introspection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for vague discussion of canon-compliant parental abuse

Even as Vriska’s ostentatious cutlass sears the air in half in its swift arc towards you, you’re crossing the thin steel blades of your own swords to meet it before you even have time to think. Blue-tinted metal clangs against dual lines of thin, bright silver. 

“Been too long,” you grin at her. “We shouldn’t have skipped last week.” 

Then you’ve dropped the points of your own swords and thrust one of them towards her; she dodges out of the way, makes you spin around to meet her again. Another crash of blades. Her guard is improving. She hasn’t gotten less reckless – in that sense, her fighting style is the same as it was in FLARP – but perhaps more attentive to your movements. Or maybe the two of you just know each other too well, now. 

As you move your own blade with stony precision, indicating years of practice, indicating years of falling asleep to fantasies of doing this as a full blown legislacerator, you know you’re holding back a little. When you’d started sparring a few perigees ago, soon after the start of your third year, you’d had trouble lifting your blades against her at all. 

“Terezi, even if you somehow managed to killed me, dying in a sparring accident is the _definition_ of a stupid death,” she’d complained, clearly this close to re-explaining God Tier mechanics to you, and whatever look you’d met her with had resulted in an exasperated sigh. 

“Fuck. Fine. Wrong thing to say, got it. Look, if anyone needs to be careful here, it’s me, all right?” 

You’d conceded to the logic of her argument, much as it pained you to do so. And you’re used to it now. Mostly. 

It’s not all you and Vriska. You’ve practiced with Karkat a few times, Dave exactly once, but this is _your_ default. It’s comfortable, for the most part, so long as you can put yourself in the body of a younger self, a self that – a self that participated in the murder of hundreds of people, no, so the body of a _different_ you altogether, one that has not killed directly or indirectly, (one who therefore could not survive to six sweeps on Alternia, could not ascend her Echeladder, could not kill her Denizen) –

Back up. Revise. It’s comfortable, for the most part, so long as you can forget the particular smell of a lemon-orange tunic, and your detailed dreams of just how it would have smelled when stained by cobalt blood. 

Vriska, unbothered, spins around dramatically as she swings her sword, a move which you’re positive adds nothing of value to her fighting and might, in fact, detract from her efficiency. “Serket, you are so _dramatic_ ,” you sing out, ducking out of her way to let the blade fly over your head; then you’re leaping up from a crouched position to point your sword at her, let the tip of the blade rest very slightly against where her shirt bears her sign. 

“Yield, Marquise,” you say, because (despite everything you know is true of the past and future), sometimes it helps to think of it all as another game. 

“Break?” she asks. Her tone of voice is inordinately sweet. You can picture her planning, already, for how to get you in the next round. 

When the two of you have taken a few breaths, leaning against the cold metal wall of the meteor, she speaks up. “Lalonde’s doing better. Or so Fussyfangs vaguely assured me.” She takes a thoughtful sip of water. “Then she accused me of meddling, which, like, coming from her –” 

“You know Kanaya. She’s all about ‘her and her shiny new matesprit’s right to privacy,” you say, without a real accusation behind it. You and Vriska have looked in on Dave and Karkat’s adventures in being human best bros far too often for it to have had any weight. 

“Well, there’s no need for her to treat me as a threat. I’m looking out for the integrity of my team! Not my fault asking Lalonde how she’s doing doesn’t work.” 

Rose Lalonde is, in many ways, a woman after your own heart. Were it not for the strange transtemporal memo, or the evening that you found her on her own, or your knowledge that she would never _willingly_ arrive late to an engagement with Kanaya, or – above all – your general confidence in your assessments of people’s natures, you could have easily convinced yourself there had never been a problem at all. If her tone of voice had sounded a shade more tired in the last half year, if she’d been a touch irritable at meetings, even that was, you are sure, a ploy to discourage questions. 

She doesn’t just avoid asking for help; she projects a convincing aura of don’t-try-to-help-me. You feel a surge of professional envy at the thought.

In any case, you suppose it makes sense after all that Vriska had been the one with the guts to do something about any of it. Kanaya was a skilled reader of signs, messages, and comfort zones; Vriska either didn’t read them, or read them with the intention of ignoring them if it suited her purposes. 

Though not always, you remind yourself, considering the amount of things she does now because she’s picked up that they make you feel better, or because they stop you from being sad, or just because she thinks you’d like them. She doesn’t joke about her other self’s death; she invites you to sleep over when you want to stay but hate to ask. Whispers details from movies to you that she thinks your scent-sense will miss. Talks up your skills, but not your Aspect powers. 

You don't know what's given you the right to, or the unfairness of, these adjustments; you hate to be a subject of effort. You also hate to ask her to stop.

Here and now, her head is tipped back against the wall, and she’s taken off her glasses to fiddle with them, like you know she does when she’s lost in thought. “I think Strider’s doing all right, too,” she says at last. “I don’t know if he’s practicing enough, but at least he’s God Tier, so that’s something.” 

(Between your having watched Dave grow up, retroactive comparisons of this data to new facts about human social norms, vague things that Karkat’s let slip, and Dave’s outright admission one time that he had mixed feelings about meeting the alternate version of his brother, you and Vriska had ended up having A Conversation about Dave towards the start of this year. 

“So he just … had to learn to fight as a kid? _We_ all had to learn to fight –” 

“Look, human lusii – guardians, I guess – are supposed to…” 

This is not your forté.

“They’re supposed to be kind to their wrigglers, you know?” An idea strikes. “Like Egbert’s was. You remember the adult human with the penchant for tiered baked goods. It’s meant to be like that. They’re not supposed to attack human wrigglers out of nowhere. Human wrigglers are not even supposed to be that good with bladekind, apparently.” 

“Right,” said Vriska, her lips somewhat twisted. “But –” 

She clearly didn't know what she wanted to say. At last, she said, “Well, far be it from me to be culturally insensitive. Human winner for Shittiest Guardian isn’t as good as all-around, comprehensive winner of the category, but we can’t _all_ be the best.”) 

You answer her, now. “I think he and Karkat practice a bit.” 

“Hmm.” Without further acknowledgement, Vriska stands up and shoves her hands in her pockets. “Come on, round two.” 

You think that her economy of movement is even looser than usual; she is faster, too, if less precise. At one point, when the two of you are at a distance, circling each other in wait for the moment to strike, she says, “Remember the dancestors?” 

“I remember the dancestors.” Their cluster of dream bubbles had only come to an end a few weeks into your third year. “Hard to forget.” 

“I saw Feferi’s.” 

“The missing one. Her Condescension?” 

“Yeah. The one who’s _dating_ a version of me.” At the word _dating_ , she’s lunged forward; you bring a blade up, but the angle isn’t quite right, your reaction time delayed by processing this piece of news. “I didn’t – talk to them or anything. Just kind of stared and went away! But I saw _her_.” 

You can tell she’s not talking about Meenah Peixes. She’s got you on the defensive, slashing at you while she talks, and you _should_ tell her to stop, but you don’t like changing the terms like this, and so you grit your teeth and meet her blade each time, short on time to do much more than blocking her strokes. 

“She’s got a new look. Undercut. Stupid little shorts. _Anchor tattoo_.” Vriska practically spits out the last part. “Just rolling around – in dream bubble grass – doing fucking _nothing_.” 

Then she’s got you backed up against the wall, and – with a forced gentleness that you can’t imagine her directing at anyone else right now, or ever – she’s tapped your shoulder lightly with the flat of her blade. Her breathing is ragged; she smells like sweat and fury. 

“So – so it’s nice, being _safe_ , being _comfortable_ , but all of that ends in less than a year,” she says between breaths. “And I’d like to be alive at the end, and for you to be, and Kanaya, and all the others. So there’s only so long we can take to _care_ about what makes people comfortable, because my priority is that they’re not _dead_.” 

“Do you need –” you start, but she’s already straightening. 

“Round three, come on.” 

“Break?” 

“Don’t need one. Do you?” 

“No,” you say, because you don’t, not really, but also because here and now, you’re not sure you’d say you did regardless. 

“Great. Fight back this time, won’t you? You can kick my ass with bladekind if you’re trying.” 

And _that_ scoff leaves you washed with a crashing wave of something almost pitch, a desire to prove yourself, a resurgence of the urge to compete that you thought you’d rid yourself of when you were wrigglers. In the midst of an endless sea of pale intention to bring her back from whatever brink she’s clearly standing on right now, the one you _know_ you should listen to, it makes for a very strange feeling. 

_A decent moirail would insist on a break_ , you think to yourself, but you can’t stand the thought of _her_ thought of your weakness, and so you leap forward, swords drawn. 

It lasts less than three minutes; she’s putting up a fight, but her strokes are erratic with leftover emotion, while you ache all over with the desire to be proven her equal. Once more, it is almost like FLARP. Soon enough, you’ve got the flat of each blade crossed across her chest, and it’s she who’s standing against the wall, laughing. 

“That’s it! Good. Great. God, you’re good. _That_ is how we show ‘em.” 

She sounds a little more like herself (if ‘herself’ means the brash-but-well-meaning Vriska of the meteor, and not the Vriska of a sweep ago). It may be the relief of this fact, but when you move your swords, you must move clumsily, because suddenly she lets out a little gasp of pain and you’ve dropped both swords instantly to take a panicked intake of breath through your nose. 

There is blueberry blooming along one of Vriska’s forearms, where you must have cut her, and it's not a dangerouscut, and her God Tier healing factor will kick in in a moment and then everything will be fine, it will be _fine_ , but blueberry blood is the smell of every non-Dream Bubble dream you have, and everything smells nonsensically bright, the same scent of brightness carried by a forest under the Alternian sun, and you’re having to brace your hands against your knees so that you can breathe, or try to – 

She’s come forward to meet you. “Terezi,” she says. “I’m _fine_ , Terezi, don’t be – I mean, uh, shoosh, it’s already healing, check it out –” 

“I’m fine,” you say, amid harsh breaths. “It’s fine, Vriska, give me a fucking moment and –” 

She smells unhappy, like she always does when she’s some kind of worried about you. “Do you need to talk about it?” she asks, and you shake your head. You don’t miss the scent of her relief. 

“Same shit as before. I’m ready for any fight, Vriska. I doubt Lord English has an army of Vriska clones up his sleeve.” 

She almost certainly wants to say something, perhaps something along the inspiring lines of “Jesus, you never even _killed_ me in this universe,” or “What do you think you’re gonna do, kill me by accident? If you ever kill me, it’ll be on purpose,” or “Do you need me to explain to you what ‘God Tier’ means again?” Or, possibly: “Terezi, why are you fucking pathetic?” 

She does not. She settles instead for tentatively putting a hand on your back and moving it in small circles. “Hey, good round,” she says. “Great trick at the end there.” 

“You know all my tricks,” you say, managing to smile at last. Her answering grin is wide and bright enough that something inside you twists with a far more real reciprocal happiness. 

If you are occasionally visited, now that you’ve entered your third year, by the thought that this must all soon come to an end, you don’t let the thought linger too long. Time is not your aspect, after all. It is possible for you to forget its passage, for long enough at a time. 

-

As you might have predicted, an attempted post-sparring feelings jam does not result in a coherent revelation of anyone’s feelings. Vriska keeps on trying to talk about _yours_ , to the point where at one point, you uncharitably suspect she just wants you to say you’re still guilty about nearly killing her, which is something you try not to talk about for fear of wearing her out with the subject. 

On the subject of her alternate self, she is more-or-less avoidant. “I mean, sure, it pisses me off, but who wouldn’t be pissed off, you know? Like, she’s running around being useless –” 

“It’s the afterlife, though,” you frown. “What’s she supposed to do?” 

“I don’t know, defeat the horrible monster who is currently in the active process of smashing up reality?” Vriska rolls her eyes. “Terezi, you just don’t get it because – look, your other self is a martyr and a hero. She went out saving an entire fucking timeline. And mine got killed to prevent dooming one. A selfish kid who didn’t stop to think for two seconds –” 

“Vriska, if I’d –” 

“Bullshit! Whatever you’re about to say is bullshit. You did what you thought was the only option, and we’re giving up blaming you for that, okay? Like, Jesus, I deserved it. I _accept_ that! No, shut up, we’re not turning this into an argument about whether I deserved it. The _point_ is, that bitch died in the most unheroic way anybody could envision, the Clock ticked _just_ for her, and the way she chose to make up for any of this was _fooling around with Her Imperious Condescension_.” 

“We’ve talked about this,” you say, and she shrugs; a deliberate motion of sharp shoulders, slow and pointed enough for your scent to register the motion. 

“I’m not going to change my mind about my past self being a selfish ass, and I’m not changing my mind about the fact that she deserved what was coming to her,” says Vriska, and you believe her, even as much as you wish you didn’t. “Just like I can’t convince _you_ that you were doing the right thing when you decided to stop me, doesn't matter how you did it.” 

You respond with silence. Clearly, Vriska has got more to say. 

“It doesn’t actually even make sense, how you’d think one and not the other,” she says, and now she almost sounds genuinely angry. “Like – if you think you’re a bad person for trying to kill me, then what the fuck am – what the fuck is _she_? You’ve got to pick one, Terezi.” 

You note the slip, not that you know what to do with it. Not that you know what to say at all, not about any of this. Your mind races. _Because you’re the only real friend I’ve ever had, and who kills the only real friend they’ve ever had_ , you could say, or _because I told you, I’m done with punishing people by killing them_ , or _because you were six_ – but _you_ were six, too – so maybe _because I can forgive you, or hope to, but not myself, but maybe you can forgive me, but –_

Still, if she tells you to pick, you’ll pick. “Then maybe I don’t think either of us are bad people,” you say, and know it comes out hollow. How the _fuck_ are you supposed to make that judgement on Vriska’s part, let alone on yours? 

Vriska catches her breath; for a moment she almost seems caught off-guard. Maybe she registers your uncertainty as you say it, and maybe she doesn’t, but regardless, you don’t think she expected you to move the argument in that direction. 

She sighs, then moves over to you and slings an arm around your shoulder. “Obviously we're not! We're about to save the world. And about my ghost, it doesn’t matter right now, anyway. She’s a ghost. Definition of irrelevant. I won’t talk about her if it bothers you.” 

“Doesn’t matter _right now_?” you ask, tempting as it is to melt into the contact and forget this conversation. 

“Gotta keep track of every game piece,” Vriska shrugs. “Even the ones that, trust me, I would _much_ rather forget about forever.” 

And then you drop the subject after all, because something tells you that this isn’t one of the things you two can jam out a conclusion about. She’s probably right, after all. Vriska’s ghost (the one you killed, it must be; maybe it’s your guilt, maybe that’s why your insides hurt when Vriska eviscerates her – or maybe it’s something else, something you can’t figure out) could get killed for good any day now. You doubt that either of you is likely to encounter her. 

-

Half a year away from the new session, you’re up late tinkering with the sylladex you and Vriska have made for storing the Earth, double-checking its functionality. It’s busywork, really; it’s been working for weeks. The closer you come to the session, the more you, Vriska, and Rose find yourself micromanaging aspects of the plan, testing things one too many times. You’re starting to think of thinking up an auxiliary project just to keep the two of them from tearing something down by accident. 

You’re not sure why you’re deferring sleep at this point; there is nothing to be afraid of, only dream bubbles and the occasional dead-Vriska-dream breaking through their mass, which _should_ have grown tired by now anyway. The sleeplessness is a shitty habit you fell into last year, and you were never sure why it started in the first place. 

You think of texting Vriska a status update, but she’s probably asleep. You think of texting Vriska in general, and don’t. You _are_ tired, you register as the minutes trickle on and you stare at familiar scattered sylladex cards. It might be time to –

“Time to exile this asshole,” a familiar voice says, and you are bathed in the metal-and-honey smell of Prospit all around you, wearing the soft trousers of your dreamself’s body. 

Vriska is in front of you – thirteen sweeps old, no metal arm. Regular clothes, unlike your yellow pajamas. “Follow my lead,” she says, and your lips twist in a sharp grin. 

“I suppose you know your way all around Prospit,” you say. “A week since awakening is more than enough time to get the lay of the land. Why don’t you show a helpless blind girl her way, Serket, come on?” 

“Quit the _act_ ,” Vriska sighs with a familiar petulance. “I’ve got way too many irons in the fire for you to pull this shit right now. What do you want? Do you want to lead the way? You can fucking lead the way, we both know who’s in charge here.” 

“Yes,” you smile sweetly. “That would be me.” 

You stride in front of her down streets that she herself awoke you on, and she follows you, and you grin wider when you smell relief from her at the fact that she doesn’t have to navigate these all-too-familiar alleyways.

“Last time you saw me here, I was bleeding to death,” she says casually. “That Nitram, what a bitch. Couldn’t even kill me.” 

“I know you God Tiered, Vriska,” you say. You don’t tell her you remember, that smelling the blueberry blood spill on gold cobblestones had stirred an emotion in you that you’d tried immediately to put behind you. 

“Not too late for you to do it. Have you told Vantas all about it yet? Maybe he’d stab you, it’d be romantic –” 

“He hasn’t asked!” you say, which means _no_. You’re not sure about why that is, either. “But when telling him about your status becomes strategically relevant, Karkat and all associated parties will know about it immediately.” 

“ _Fuck_ you, I’m more strategically relevant than the rest of you combined,” says Vriska viciously, sounding like you’ve _actually_ gotten to her. Point to Terezi. “So is Vantas your best fucking friend now? Or no, fuck, has he actually landed a real-life quadrant for once instead of just watching his stupid movies?” 

“That sounds like it might not be your business!” you tell her. “We’re almost there, Serket, so pipe down.” 

“He has it _bad_ for you, you know,” says Vriska. “You should hear how he talks about you, like you hung both fucking moons. Which you would, given the chance, from one of your stupid homemade nooses, were either of the moons to have ever made a tiny mistake.”

You feel distanced, suddenly, from the barrage of confused insults, distant enough to remember that something isn’t right here. Why would Vriska care about your relationship with Karkat, here and now? Why would her voice carry such an undercurrent of _hurt_ – 

“Dream bubble!” you say, a little shocked at yourself; usually, these days, you catch on within moments. You spin around to face her. “Vriska, what gives? Are you –” 

“Not Vriska,” says Vriska, and changes. The act of remembering in a dream bubble is a scent-experience you have never known how to describe. Things are one way, and then they are another; the transition happens the very same way it does when you’re actually dreaming, without a progression to it. It always leaves you disoriented. 

The new Vriska in front of you doesn’t smell like any Vriska you’ve ever known. She smells… clean-cut, _neat_ , a metallic sort of polished. The sea-scent is absent; it’s something, instead, like old books. And she is _sharp_ , you know this, in the same way Vriska is, and then not the same at all. 

You don’t bother asking who she is. “Aranea. You’re the other missing dancestor. Where have you been?” 

The blueberry-scent sours. “Maybe spending eternity in a bubble of two-dimensional ghost imprints just got boring, Terezi, did you think of that?”

“Have we met before?” you ask, a deliberate play of ignorance; you are quite sure you know the answer already.

Whatever reaction you expect the teen Mindfang to have, it is not the flush that colors her face. “Not _we_.” 

“You’ve met my other self, though.” 

“You’re sharper than her.” 

“I would describe it as ‘less miserable,’ thank you,” you say, and once again, Aranea smells… ashamed? 

“I’m sorry, this was a mistake,” she says, backing up; it is strange to witness someone who smells so much like Vriska making any kind of effort to diminish themselves. Judging by how she’d spoken at first, comfortable with the sound of her own voice at the very least, you suspect that it’s uncomfortable for her, too. “I should leave.” 

“Then why’d you find me here? Or am I meant to think masquerading as Vriska was a coincidence?” 

“No! No, it’s not, I thought that part would make for an interesting bit of symmetry – not that you’d ever be aware of it, of course, but sometimes narrative symmetry exists on its own, without requiring validation from any inside observer.” Aranea puts her hands on her hips. 

“I’m getting the impression,” you say, “that this conversation is not going how you meant it to.” 

“Are you always this antagonistic when you’re not mired in grief?” she asks sharply, and then puts a hand over her mouth delicately. “Oh, I apologize, this _isn’t_ how it was meant to go at all –” 

“I don’t want to undermine your opportunities to be nasty,” you say. “In fact, I’d be quite disappointed with you if you held back.” 

It’s far easier, in a way, than interacting with Latula, even if the presumed physical resemblance to Vriska throws you a bit off-guard. Her voice is different, though. The volume at which Aranea Serket speaks is generally quieter, her voice pitched higher; when she raises her voice, you note the edge of a reprimand. 

“I’m not _trying_ to be nasty,” she says here and now, and you can sense her impatience. “I – I appeared here to apologize, okay?” 

For the first time, she catches you genuinely off-guard. “Apologize for what?” 

“For – well, shit, if you managed to undo the other timeline somehow, I don’t suppose you’d know, would you?” Her voice hitches just a bit on _other timeline_. “So I think I’d rather –” 

Your hand has reached out to grab her arm before she manages to walk away. “Tell me,” you say. It is not a request. It frightens you just a bit, the ease with which the reckless intimidation you’d fallen into a sweep ago returns to your voice. 

“Having her makes all the difference, it seems,” says Aranea. “I don’t suppose _you_ want your eyesight back?” 

The part of you that always thinks, that always watches, both your thoughts and the thoughts of others, intentions and consequences and the branching webs thereof, thinks: _that’s meant to shock you_. 

The rest of you is successfully shocked. You let go of her arm. 

“I keep saying the wrong thing,” says Aranea. “I don’t want you to hate me, truly.” 

“What do you mean, you don’t suppose I want my eyesight back?” 

“I came to apologize. I _did_. If you’d just listened –” 

“Did my other self – why would she –” 

“Because she was unhappy enough to ask, I suppose,” Aranea snaps. “And now you’re not, so be grateful for it, and be grateful that you _got_ to be a hero and – and leave _me_ alone, okay?” 

She doesn’t sound like Vriska. Not really. Not Vriska as she ever addressed _you_ , at least. But when she says “be grateful that you got to be the hero,” she sounds just enough like Vriska that your tide of furious confusion slows down just for a moment. 

“What did you do?” you ask quietly. 

“You don’t know? But you could remember if you tried. It’s part of your aspect. Access the minds of others, access the mind of your other self. And you are a Seer - you _know_ your aspect. The knowledge changes you.” Her voice seems to calm as she explains; the cerulean outline of her body grows less tense. “If the information is within anyone’s reach, it’s yours.” 

“I didn’t know that was something I could do,” you say, excitement bubbling to the surface – excitement and apprehension in the face of what you’d see. “I knew I could see the outcomes of decisions, but –” 

“The rule of thumb,” says Aranea, “is that you are always filled with _more_ potential than you think. Sgrub’s rules are consistently nebulous. You can break them if you choose to take the risk.” A note of bitterness surfaces. “It is a risk, of course.” 

“If you wanted to have a conversation with me,” you ask, “why didn’t you lead with –” 

“With useful advice? I don’t know, Terezi! Maybe because I got tired of being _useful_ once. But yes, good lesson for the stupid girl, circle me _right_ back to Windfang, Aranea won’t-shut-up Serket, Aranea ‘exposition’ Serket, Aranea ‘worldbuilding!’ Serket –” 

She sounds actually near tears now. “Like I _said_ , I’m _sorry!_ ” she cries out, and then she’s turned on a heel and taken off down the honey-gold cobblestones of Prospit.

You don’t feel like following. Whatever answers Aranea holds, you are quite sure she’s not willing to give them. And she said there had been another way –

Even here, in the middle of a dream bubble, you stop to figure out what your next step is. So you don’t have to reverse-engineer the other timeline from your choices: you can just _remember_ it, if you try. You almost wish she hadn’t told you this; if you’d safely kept it outside the scope of your powers, tried to make peace with it as a nebulous unknown, it didn’t work _all_ of the time, but it worked _some_ of the time. But now the ghost of your other self has marched right back into the realm of possibility. 

You close your eyes. Try to look for the truth outside yourself, try to broaden your mind. But you can’t even relax enough to remember what Seeing felt like, because your questions for yourself keep coming, mingling with the strange disparate pieces of Aranea’s conversation. 

_Not going to ask for your eyesight back, are you?_

(“Mindfang isn’t a liar,” you remember five-sweep-old Vriska telling you loftily. “She doesn’t need to lie. If she wants to use brute force, she has her mind control, and even _that_ she prefers to mix in with people’s existing desires! But she doesn’t need to lie, because she just _gets_ people, well enough to get them to do what she wants with just the right pieces of the truth.”

You’d been in a competitive mood that day. “You mean like what I did to that team of olivebloods,” you said. “Give them the facts, but only some!” 

Your boast had caused an argument. Then you’d made up, and planned your next campaign, and you’d been sure to praise Vriska’s ideas, because at the end of the day you had hated seeing her upset –) 

Now the words resurface, against all odds, in your head. 

“Mindfang isn’t a liar.” You say it to yourself. So what had happened? If you See, if you ever figure out how, will you see the most worn-down possible version of yourself, or the best, most heroic one? Could they be both? Is it your fate to be sort-of-happy while your better self suffers? Or is it your fate to never be happy at all –

“Terezi!” 

You whirl around in the dream bubble, but the hands on your shoulders and the voice in your head aren’t there from Aranea coming back, they do not stem from a renewed physical presence in the bubble, they come from –

“Terezi. Terezi?” 

You are in your own dimly lit respiteblock, one cheek pressed against a pile of sylladex cards, and your neck is _fucking_ killing you. Your glasses are slipping off your face, pressing uncomfortably into your cheek. Vriska is standing over you. 

“You all right, Pyrope?” she asks the moment you move, standing back. “You were – I think you were talking in your sleep?” 

“Well, did I say anything interesting?” The question manages to sound playful rather than worried. Good. Top of your game, Terezi, as always. 

“Couldn’t make it out.” 

“What are you even doing here?” 

“Came to ask if you were still awake. Saw you, figured that couldn’t be comfortable.” As she sometimes does when admitting to an independent pale act, Vriska sounds like she’s fending off an accusation.

“Thank you.” This time, you fail to make yourself sound nonchalant, and Vriska’s hand lands on your shoulder again. 

_Don’t ask if I’m okay_ , you think as hard as possible. 

“Everything good?” 

“Shitty dream bubble,” you shrug. “Found the other missing dancestor. If we united ours, we’d collect them all.” 

“Mindfang,” says Vriska, and now she’s frowning. “Fuck. Was she –” 

“Tell you tomorrow?” you ask, almost pleadingly, and Vriska squeezes your shoulder. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, tell me tomorrow. We’ve had enough alternate-Serket bullshit for now.” 

There is a meteor completing its journey through the disintegrating wreck of Paradox Space. Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and you know less than ever. As the disparate pieces of an alternate timeline float around in your head, you don’t manage to fall asleep again for a very long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i started reading an article called "how to write swordfights" for this but the guy writing it was so smug that i gave up and surrendered to ignorance. if you're reading this and you're, like, a Sword Scholar, i'm very sorry for subjecting you to that scene. also i could have been smarter in another life....! i did half a semester of fencing before covid started don't blame me blame 2020
> 
> we are nearing the endgame which can only mean "presidential alert the girls are sad." seriously speaking, though, if you've read this far, that's CRAZY and you are so COOL! THANK YOU!


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A variety of ghosts, the question of the future, and arbitrary discussions of Homer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains allusions to canonical child abuse

You wake up the next morning to Vriska and two mugs of coffee. “You really have to sleep better,” she says offhandedly. “Now tell me about Mindfang.” 

“Eager, aren’t we?” 

She flushes. “I don’t – she’s going to be l _a_ me. I’ve been up all day thinking up ways she could be the lamest person imaginable so that you can’t shock me. Is she a, what, librarian – ?” 

“I didn’t ask her profession, shockingly enough. Also, I don’t think anyone in the Dream Bubbles has jobs. Dragging down the Furthest Ring economy, all of them.” 

“Legislacerators and their technicalities,” says Vriska, shaking her head. “The legal shit is bad enough, don’t start talking like an economercenary. But what happened? It seemed like a shitty dream bubble, not gonna lie.” 

“I guess it was.” You make a face as you consider the facts. “Marginally shitty. Frustratingly baffling is the better word.” 

You think of what to tell her. That you have a new winner for most-unsettling-fact about your other self; that you can access her memories, as per a Mindfang clone whose authority seems largely grounded in the fact that she feels like she has it. It’s not as if you’ve never considered the possibility – it was all you thought about in the first weeks, after all – but the validation of an explicit chance, even if it comes from an unverified source, is fucking with your head. 

“Come _on,_ Terezi, I met _your_ ancestor, it’s only fair,” says Vriska, stretching out across your couch, nearly knocking over your mug of coffee. You are, you realize, deferring something that she once would have already yelled at you for not telling her immediately. You would have yelled back, of course. Once upon a time, very long ago, she’d have cried first. Then she stopped crying. Both of you didn’t tend to cry much, in those sweeps. Both of you go on not tending to cry much, or _went_ on, in your case. 

It’s still new, knowing someone has seen you at your most miserable and stayed anyway. It being Vriska is strange, and also the only thing that would ever have made sense.

She stays, and she is kind. Even when her patience with you falters, it does not disappear. You’ve always known she could be kind, but had managed to forget, over and over - just as she had managed to forget, manages to forget even now. 

So she stays. Whether she respects you is… is a question for a deeper, more surreal, less substantial time of day. For now, you have an ancestor to report on. 

When you’re done telling Vriska about Aranea, the expression on her face indicates that setting herself up for disappointment might not have worked. When she finally speaks, though, she doesn’t go in the direction that you expected. 

“She said _you_ asked for your eyesight back.” 

“Yes.” 

“You wouldn’t do that!” 

“So I thought.” 

“Well – fuck that. Whoever or whatever made you think you had to, thank fucking god I was there to stop it.” The assumption of her agency in the matter rankles at you just a little, and you open your mouth to contradict her, then close it again. She’s probably _right_ , after all, if not by direct interference then through lines of cause-and-effect. “You don’t think Mindfang was lying?” 

“Mindfang doesn’t lie,” you echo. 

“ _My FLARP character_ , Mindfang, doesn’t lie,” says Vriska. “God, pretty sure I read that trait into the diary to be more like you anyway. The totally legit and definitely not embarrassing character-building process took a lot of extrapolation.” 

“It made us happy, back then,” you say, sitting down next to her. “That’s not such a bad thing.” 

You did not say _it made it all survivable_ , because what would the use be? And it would be unfair to her anyway. You had always had the option of leaving. You _did_ leave, in the end. And you'd made a stellar effort at not being bothered by it. Spite had flowed through you so freely back then, it had almost convinced you there was nothing else you felt. 

“It’s been a sweep,” says Vriska. “Doesn’t matter anyway.” And when she says _doesn’t matter_ , certainty has returned to her voice as if it was never absent. When she speaks, you believe her, still. You wonder if that was all your other self was thinking. Or maybe she just missed Vriska desperately. You know you would. You know you still _might_ , depending on how this plays out, but that’s another train of thought you reserve for your sleepless days. 

Or maybe you guys are on top of this, and you’ve got a plan, and the potential unraveling of time and space itself is a pretty good reason to want to keep going, figure it out, not resent the too-long strategy meetings, keep arguing back when Vriska says something you think is fucking stupid. Not lose energy, no matter how easy it is to feel it draining out of you at every moment that you forget to hold yourself together. 

It is not within your nature to hold yourself together on anything but an externalized level. You are an outside face and a barely-contained sea of undefinable thoughts. It has always been this way. The only difference this meteor brings is that you have fallen out of the habit of containing them. 

“You okay?” asks Vriska, poking you in the shoulder, and you manage to smile in her general direction. 

“Yeah. What are you doing after this?” 

“Frog contingencies with Kanaya,” she says. “Fucking space players, they’re all on such high horses about the process of the thing. But I’m going to bug her about backup plans until she gives me answers.” 

“Isn’t it all just talking around the fact that, if anything’s happened to their session’s frog, we’re all screwed?” you ask, and she gives a long-suffering sigh. 

“Isn’t dream bubble observation duty just an excuse to mope on the roof?” she hits back, but even though you laugh (it’s true enough, after all) her expression is stupidly stricken almost as soon as she says it. 

“I didn’t mean that,” she says, and you don’t know whether to be amused or offended that she thinks your feelings are so fragile. 

“Yes you did,” you say. “And you were right! But we all need something to do.” 

“You were right, too, kind of,” says Vriska. “But it’s better than doing nothing. For the record, I think the frog is fine. Harley seemed like a loser at first, but from what Karkat said, she was a very competent Space player.” 

“You just want to hang out with Kanaya,” you say, and earn a sharp Serket Elbow for your troubles. “She’s your frieeeennnddd, Vriska, you value her insiiiiiights –” 

“Quit while you’re ahead, Terezi!” 

“I’m always ahead!” In the doorway, you salute her. “Enjoy your graphic discussions of frog breeding, glorious leader.” 

“Have fun sniffing out the Furthest Ring for criminals, brilliant strategist.” 

When you leave the room, you think you’re both smiling. 

-

Vriska was entirely correct about dream bubble duty, of course. You like it up there, even after years of the same view, even knowing that paradox space is coming apart above your heads. The view does not change, but it gives you time to think. Gives you space to be alone, when you need it. 

You do not always need time to think, of course. Sometimes you need as little time to think as possible. But that’s what spending time with Vriska is for. 

Tonight, the pitch-black of the Furthest Ring is not only split apart by the scent-searing threads of light that pull it apart at the seams but by a distant blur of orange. You’d know Vriska’s scent anywhere, and this isn’t her. Plus, only two people on this meteor have formed this level of codependence with their God Tier robes. 

“Miss Tangerine,” you say cheerfully. “This is my perch, get your own!” 

“How very territorial,” says Rose. “Can two Seers not share an observation deck?” 

You walk over to her. “Observation's a big job, Rose. How are you to you know mine won't interfere with yours?”

Unmoved, she pats the cement beside her. “It’s been a while since we last talked,” she says, and you take her meaning immediately: she means not talked but _talked_ , and by _talked_ she means the night last sweep when you found her rambling about lusii. “And yet our respective girlfriends have made significant inroads in the pan-species emotion called friendship. I feel a bit left behind.” 

You stay standing. Say, stiffly, “If Kanaya’s flouting social norms, I can’t stop her. The world’s ended. But Vriska is not my human girlfriend. She is my moirail. You are not Dave! I know you know the word. In fact, I know he knows the word, too.” 

“Interesting that a mere linguistic distinction would be this disquieting to you.” 

“Maybe I’m attempting to preserve the few aspects of my culture that are by any means salvageable, Lalonde, did you think of that? Xenophobe.” 

“Is anything salvageable?” Rose fires back; not just aggressive, but genuinely thoughtful, in the offhand way she has. “From either of our worlds, Terezi.” 

You swallow. What you want to say is this: you don’t know sometimes about diamonds and you don’t know about spades and hearts and clubs either, you don’t know about Mindfang and Redglare and legislacerators and FLARP games. You don’t know about anything that pretended at war. You don’t know about the diary. You don’t know about the red gloves.

What’s salvageable, maybe, is the leaves of your tree, but not the nooses hanging from it, or the sea by Vriska’s, though maybe not what lived in it, or the ship you sailed on it. And Karkat and Kanaya are in the active process of salvaging themselves; you can see it in them. And what’s salvageable is – who’s salvageable is – Vriska is, Vriska must be – and you, but only maybe – 

“Something’s got to be,” you say out loud, folding your arms in irritation. “Or else why are we making a universe?” 

“A new universe,” she says. “A universe that must not be ours. A universe we don’t control. You’ve heard Vriska talk about this, even _she_ agrees.” 

Yes, one night, you had heard the very beginnings of Vriska’s declaration that nobody should control a universe. She told you later that she was workshopping the speech, whatever that meant. When she talked about it, though, spread out in a massive chair in the library, your pusher had filled with something huge. 

(What’s salvageable is –) 

“So do we forget Alternia?” you ask. “Quite a tall order of you.” 

“Of course you can’t. The same as we can't forget Earth. I’m only saying that, from what Kanaya and Dave have said about quadrants –” 

“Rose, if you’re going to be insufferable, I will at least ask you about something useful.” 

“Oh?” 

You swallow. “What does Light mean? To you personally.” 

“How philosophical. I do assume you mean capital-L Light?” 

“I mean all-caps L1GHT with a one for the I, Lalonde. Keep up, please.” 

“Of course. My apologies. But you refer to my aspect.” 

“I refer to Light.” 

Rose sighs. There is a long silence, but you know there will be an answer, because if she had asked you about Mind, you would have given her an answer, too. Camaraderie between Seers, if you will. 

“Imagine an illuminated thread,” she says at least. “It is lit up in a – a tangled web of dimmer threads, and it is my task to follow the brightest one, which is also the most unbroken, the most favorable. Of those I see, at least. And so I follow fortune, and so we ensure... the maintenance of the story, if you will.” She snorts. You know her bitterness.

“And the downside?” 

“You assume there is a downside.” 

“I know there is a downside.” 

“With Seer of Mind powers?” 

“Because I _know_!” 

“As impenetrable as ever,” says Rose. You hope she’s rolling her eyes. “Fine. The downside is that I don’t know where _I_ stand. That part doesn’t seem to matter. The perpetration of our fortune – the continuation of the epic – does not seem to care about my individual progress within it. And that has proven to be increasingly frustrating.” 

“Hm,” you say. 

“Have I helped?” asks Rose after a long silence. “Or was this all an experiment in amusement? Am I to expect your findings in an academic journal?” 

“Oh, we _should_ have been publishing a newsfeed,” you say, suddenly overcome with a wrigglerlike regret at lost time. “Contributions from everyone. It would have been fun! Vriska and Aradia and I tried to start one once. We let Tavros draw the comics. They were quite terrible.” 

(Too personal a memory, but maybe you don’t mind right now. Maybe that was salvageable. And maybe not.) 

Rose, despite herself, smells of smiling. “I tried to write a weekly newspaper once, too,” she says slowly. “I was six. There was a – a story about wizards, and an interview with my cat. The meows were left untranslated. My mother hung it on the fridge.” She makes a face, and her smile falls. One too-personal memory for another. No debts unpaid.

Another silence. You are both remembering. (You are both salvaging.) 

“An ancient Earth epic poet used to call the sea wine-dark,” says Rose, out of nowhere. 

You think this one over for a moment. “Wine is one of your –” 

“One of the vices I am slowly eradicating.” 

“Well, your oceans smelled more like blue raspberry soda to me,” you say cheerfully, “but this sounds like a poet after my own heart.” 

Rose lets out a little huff of a laugh, as if enjoying a private joke. “Hm. Homer _was_ thought to be blind, actually, though of course he would not have been taught to taste colors by a dragon.” 

“As far as you know.” 

“Hah.” 

“As fascinating as this foray into human Earth culture is, does your ambiguously delicious wine-flavored sea relate to anything we’d been discussing?” 

Rose thinks for a moment. “No. Aside from the word _epic_ , which I have so loftily assigned to our journey. And aside from the darkness of space, which I have come to associate with the phrase.” 

“Space does not smell like any of your soporifics,” you say helpfully. “It smells like... a bit of licorice, and sometimes the sea on Alternia, at night, when clouds covered the moons. But mostly licorice.” 

“Fascinating,” says Rose, and she almost sounds like she means it. 

A few minutes of silence. 

“Maybe we’re not supposed to know,” you say at last. “Where you stand in your alleged epic. Or what I’m capable of, in other timelines.” 

“I’m supposed to know whatever the hell I want to find out.” Rose’s voice is like steel, suddenly. “It only takes the right approach.” 

This cheers you, somehow. “A point for Miss Lalonde,” you say. “That smells like truth.” 

You watch the dream bubbles for another hour; her, writing in her notebook, and you, thinking about knowledge, and about rules. It’s not so bad. 

-

When the dream bubble hits you that evening, you’ve left the observation deck; you’re down in your respiteblock instead, reading another one of Vriska’s novels, and it’s a testament to the overwhelming boredom of the meteor that you’re giving the goofy nautical vocabulary a chance. It is a testament to how you feel about Vriska that it keeps making you smile when you come across the terms she threw around in FLARP, often entirely outside of their conventional technical context. 

You are caught up enough in this that you only notice the dream bubble when your palmhusk chirps. Your room is someone else’s, as it happens sometimes. Bright swathes of fabric on the wall, tasteful (and possibly tasty – it’s a shame you can’t eat dream bubble material) plants. Cloth strewn across the floor. Unmistakably Kanaya. 

You open the message.

AG: You will never guess what 8last from the past the Furthest Ring hit us with tod8y!  
AG: 8ctually it’s sh8cking th8t it h8sn’t h8ppened bef8re!  
AG: Like the rest of y8u 8re sick to d8ath of y8ur poor d8parted h8ves 8nd I’ve 8een missing 8ut 8ntirely!!!!!!!

Oh. So a crisis situation. 

When you find Vriska (not running, but definitely walking fast), you are shocked by the total absence of sharp sensory memory you experience. It is as if you are in an entirely new place. 

It makes sense, really; every time you have witnessed her respiteblock before, it has been with your eyes. As you’ve almost never done with spaces, you superimpose your memory of its visual appearance of the scents. The ashy scent powdering the corners of the block must be spiderwebs; the shards of licorice are magic 8 balls, but in a far greater frequency than they had ever littered her room when the two of you had spent time there. The spiderwebs, too, have closed in. Outside the open window, there is a sliver of dark sky. Rose and lime light falls onto the floor, and _that_ , at last, floods your senses with memory. 

(The moons were salvageable. But not what lived on one them.)

“Careful –” she starts, just as you put your foot down on a sharp plastic pyramid and wince. 

“D4,” she adds, unnecessarily. She’s standing on the other end of the room, outlined against the window. A breeze ruffles her hair, reaches towards you; _that_ scent you remember, though you had always smelled it as a supplement to sight. An Alternian night by the ocean. 

You walk to join her at the window, where the sea-salt breeze is strong. Your heart clenches; it smells like Vriska, like what she has smelled like to you from the very moment you woke her on Prospit. The rules of this room predominate; no matter how much you want to, you do not take her hand. The rules of Vriska predominate; no matter how much you want her to, she does not take yours. 

“It’s a mess in here,” she says. “Can’t believe I lived like this.” 

“My taste in hives aged better than yours,” you agree. You’re saying it as an opening, really, for her to laugh at your garish hive, and for you to insist your walls were _delicious_ , thank you very much, and lick her face, and for the argument to act as a distraction, for Vriska to smell less _small_. 

Instead, she just grunts. You imagine her hands, tight on the windowsill.

“She’s not here,” she says. “That would be stupid.” 

“No,” you say. “She’s not here.” 

“But if I remember the stairs, they’ll be there,” she says. “And I remember the stairs. And I remember –” 

“Me too.” 

“But she’s not here.” 

“No.” 

A silence. 

(Time is dead kids. The stairs. A spider in her basement. She does not cry. She does not touch you. She does not tell you to leave.) 

(What is salvageable –) 

“Vriska,” you say. “Not that I don’t appreciate your sense of gloomy interior decoration, but – do you think you can remember us the sea?” 

-

She takes you down the stairs, but not too far. The Dream Bubble lets Vriska follow the memory, lets you follow it with her. The doors of the imposing castle close behind you with an echo, and Vriska breathes a sigh of what might be relief. 

You follow her down the rocky path to the dock. After all these years, you remember where to step. Her ship is not there, but the expanse of the sea is. What hides inside it is not. 

You and she never tended to sit on the dock together; the sea was rarely a place of rest, besides perhaps the spaces between campaigns. But this time the two of you sit, and you take a deep breath, taking in your surroundings. Your first thought is that the sea smells like Vriska, which is not right at all, and then that it smells like the space of the Furthest Ring.

It must be a cloudy night in Vriska’s memory; you barely smell any light aside from the distant honey glow of the blueblood castles on the cliffs. It’s windy, and Vriska moves closer to you; at last, outside her castle, it is safe to take her hand. If her grip on yours is tight enough to almost hurt, it could mean anything. Could mean nothing. 

“Fucked up that we all lived here,” she says. “For six sweeps. That’s still most of our lives! _Fucked up_.” 

You sigh. Put like that, it does feel like the meteor covers a disproportionate span of your conscious memory, considering the enormity of all that came before. These days you catch yourself, sometimes, forgetting details of the game, of what came before, and of what came immediately after. You don’t remember the puzzles on LOTAF that you had once been reasonably proud of solving, what they’d entailed and where you’d found them. You cannot summon the smell of Nepeta’s blood on the ground on recall anymore. You have been forgetting, for sweeps, the names and signs of the children you killed for what you’d told Vriska was justice. 

“Yes,” you say. “Fucked up.” 

“Many a glorious FLARP campaign started here,” she says. Not quite dreamy, but not quite bitter, either. She squeezes your hand. 

“The good old days,” you echo, and this time there is a trace of irony to it. 

“Not anymore.” She pushes her hair out of her face. “Fuck, I was obnoxious. I like these days fine. I just hated – it sucked when we weren’t talking, is all. Can get you nostalgic for a bit of light murder. Or _could_ , when you are six, and very stupid! Hah.” 

“I like these days, too,” you say, because sometimes that’s all that needs to be said. For a long while the two of you sit there, hands linked, listening to the sea around you. 

“Do you still have the diary?” you ask suddenly, and Vriska shrugs. 

“Sure. Sylladexed somewhere. And I have the scans saved too, so the pages that bastard Makara ripped out are fine. Haven’t read it, though, not since…” 

Yes, she had been reading it when you’d come up to the roof to kill her. You’d scented that much over her shoulder, before she’d stood up, and you’d wondered if you two were remembering the same trial, the same ancestral cycle you’d come to fulfill. It had been at the back of your mind as you pulled on the uniform. Justice for a timeline. Justice for a Neophyte. No justice at all, really. 

(She had ordered the document scanner after bugging Aradia for weeks about specifications, and inviting her over for an afternoon so that she could show her how it worked. But Team Charge was never a part of the Church of Mindfang’s Journal in the same way you were, so it had been just you who watched her place the journal on the triangular platform, reverently turn the pages one by one. Aradia had shaken off the unsubtle exclusion, Tavros had said something about fairness, Eridan had thrown a bitch fit about Vriska having turned to Aradia for help instead of him. 

She’d given the scanner to Aradia, though, when she was done, and Aradia’s face had lit up with brilliant joy; she was more archaeologist than preservationist, maybe, but all aspects of the past’s physical evidence had left her with that brilliant smile that, later, you’d spent nights and days and weeks hating Vriska for stifling. 

“I’d _never_ have gotten one of these on my own,” Aradia had said, half-gratitude and half-bitterness. She’d always done that as a kid, talked around the edge of treasonous speech.

“You guys aren’t like other bluebloods,” she’d told you guys once, with barely a trace of fear. She’d trusted you two. As with the uncertainty around Karkat’s blood, as with a million prickles at the back of your mind at choice phrases in your memorized legal textbooks, you had filed the lawbreaking away. _We’re just kids, it doesn’t count if we’re just kids_ , you’d told yourself, and then put on your Redglare uniform and led kids you didn’t know to their deaths. 

Vriska had always known survival required unfairness. You had gotten by with the right walls in your head. The right kinds of pretending.) 

“Alternia to Terezi,” Vriska says. “Or, uh, meteor to Terezi. What are you thinking about?” 

“Alternia,” you say. “Aradia. Mindfang and Redglare.” Another pause. “How stupid we were.” 

“You don’t need to tell _me_ twice. Mindfang was…” Vriska says, and doesn’t know how to finish it. “Well, whatever she was, looking back on how much I wanted to be like her is fucking embarrassing. It’s like – all that shit online back in the day, making fun of stupid kids who thought they were their FLARP characters. That was _me_. I mean, the amount of time everyone spent calling me by her name, even –” 

Even before they called her ‘Vriska,’ she doesn’t say, but you know you’re both thinking it. One chosen name had preceded the other. One had helped actualize the other, most likely, which you suspect is the real root of her present discomfort. This is not the right time to squeeze her wrist, but you keep your hand on hers and listen. “It’s just embarrassing,” she says again, and this time you _do_ squeeze her hand. 

“You weren’t the same Mindfang as Mindfang,” you say, and she is silent in response. If you could see her face, you are sure her expression would read, _Wasn’t I?_

“You _weren’t_ ,” you say again.

Below you, the sea stirs. The false Alternian horizon of the dream bubble picks faintly at your senses; a thin line stretching out to the edge of the slate sky. A cloud still blocks the green moon, but the pink moon has emerged slightly; everything is softly rose-scented as a result. _Wine-dark,_ you think. 

“Vriska,” you say very quietly. 

“Yes?” 

“Don't you think I did the same thing with Redglare? Especially when - well, all the time, really. If you were that kind of embarrassing FLARPer, so the fuck was I!” 

There’s an intake of breath when she’s about to say something, and you lift a hand to finish. 

“In the other timeline, that was my issue! I was trying too hard to be Redglare. But I wasn't her. I was a six-sweep-old kid convincing herself to murder the person she – her best friend.” 

In your head, Vriska says: _I wasn’t your best friend back then_. And in your head you answer – in your head you answer that you would have remembered she was the moment her body hit the floor, because you do in dreams, in one dream after another. 

Or maybe you just say, _still my sister, though_. Whatever sisters are.

“I don’t buy it,” says Vriska. “You were smarter than me, back then. I think you always knew FLARP was just a game.” 

_Because it got to be a game, when I chose to make it into one_ , you think. _Because I got to quit when I got sick of it._

“It wasn’t,” you say instead. “Not for either of us, not really.” 

Another gust of wind from the sea. She leans into your shoulder, wraps her flannel around herself. “I wonder,” she starts, then stops. 

You wait, silent. Don’t ask. Either she’ll finish the sentence or she won’t. 

“What do you even do,” says Vriska at last, “in a new universe? If you don’t rule it tyrannically, I mean, which we’re not going to do.” 

“Just – live there, I guess.” The question has been bothering you too. You had possessed a stable future, a brightly imagined, detailed, planned-out thing, for the first six sweeps of your life. “Maybe I’ll figure out how to be their cuddly nice version of a legislacerator.” You’re not even sure about this. It’s just the only thing you can think of.

“Defense lawyer or some shit,” says Vriska helpfully. She says the words like they’re something foreign, but she’s remembered them, after all these months.

“Yeah.”

“And what about me? My two imaginary career options were universe-conquering admiral and badass pirate.” 

“Hm.” You have thought about this, too; it stops you in your tracks even moreso than thinking about yourself. You know you want Vriska _with_ you. You also know it is impossible, to imagine her (or you) doing something that does not involve impossible acts of heroism or violence outside of this bizarre waiting period. This meteor is not a real place. But the new universe might become one. 

You know it hurts to picture it. Because you don’t believe in it, and because, for all that you can’t picture it, you want it. 

“You could do anything, I guess,” you say at last. “Uh – study something. Build things. Give speeches? Write one of your silly novels with the detailed descriptions of ships. Sit back and watch things happen for a while? Figure it out.” 

Her hand pulls out of your grip. When you look at her face, for a moment you think you smell an unsettling twist to it; a kind of whole-body disgust. You pull away from her in turn. This was, in hindsight, a preventably stupid mistake. 

“Sit back and _watch_ everything,” she says, quieter than you expected, and you remember her months ago, talking about her other self. _There’s only so long we can take to care about what makes people comfortable, because my priority is that they’re not dead._

So what happens when you’re no longer at risk of dying? Is there even a world where this is possible? And is there a world where it is possible for Vriska to sit back and watch? Is she still Vriska if this happens?

Surely, you think, your pusher beating stupidly fast, as if you have just asked her some world-ending question, surely she would not. Surely you are not so stupid, Terezi, to try to force your moirail into something she is not. And she is your moirail, in the end, which is a lot, but it’s not everything. What were you going to do? Move in with her, on this imaginary planet that only exists in your head – spend your life with her, or some shit – 

“Let’s beat the stupid fucking game first,” says Vriska, “and then we can start looking up lawn rings.” She says, again, “Sit _back_ and _watch_!” and it’s derisive, but there’s something else, there, too. Uncertainty. 

“One thing at a time,” you say. “You’re right. Silly of me to forget.” 

She slings an arm around your shoulder. She is not angry, then, even if the lines of her body are tense. “A little forgetfulness is acceptable,” she says. “What with all our irons.” 

“In the fire?” 

“Yeah, they’re in the fire.” 

A snort at a catchphrase-turned-miraculously unretired injoke. A lean into your moirail’s (only a moirail’s, _only_ ) sharp shoulder, and the sound of the sea around you. Two moons above you, covered by clouds. The waves are resounding, repeating, reverberating; the soft background sound to your conversation with Vriska becomes the center of your awareness. You can almost picture the rocking of a ship beneath your feet. And in the midst of the rocking, like the white of a sail in the night, you find yourself imagining something (a future? a question?) being carried away into the sea, sucked in by the Alternian tide. 

As a Seer of Mind, it should be your job to know which futures are viable, and which are pure imagination. 

You have never been a good Seer of Mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i skipped last week's update because last weekend i was moving back into college and writing two papers all at the same time, and i decided the chapter would have been Pure Garbage if i'd chosen to try to push through and write it anyway. hopefully i will have another update a week or so from now though? regardless, thanks for reading!
> 
> rose's thoughts on seers are very transparently influenced by [0pacifica on twitter](https://twitter.com/0pacifica) who is very smart and whose classpect takes are very good! my own unending stream of roserezi propaganda is transparently influenced by my own favoritism towards seers, but we knew this, right? right.


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have something to tell you,” she says. 
> 
> “I assume you do on most days,” you answer, as if you can’t tell that what she means is something important; something I could’ve told you earlier, but didn’t.
> 
> She doesn’t dignify this with a response. Instead, she walks across the room and scoots closer to you where you’re sitting on the couch. Solemnly, she says, “I’m going to kill Lord English.” 

Two weeks before you are due to arrive, at the point when the blue outline of Skaia first becomes perceptible in your smelloscope, Vriska puts down her tablet pen with a sharp crack like thrown dice, and turns her face towards you abruptly. 

“I have something to tell you,” she says. 

“I assume you do on most days,” you answer, as if you can’t tell that what she means is _something important_ ; _something I could’ve told you earlier, but didn’t._

She doesn’t dignify this with a response. Instead, she walks across the room and scoots closer to you where you’re sitting on the couch. Solemnly, she says, “I’m going to kill Lord English.” 

_That_ gets your full attention, or whatever bits of it haven’t already been directed at her. 

“Oh?” you ask. “Are you leaving within moments, or should we make coffee first?” These are empty words; you are playacting yourself. What you mean is, _how? when did you decide?_

“Don’t be an asshole, Terezi,” she grumbles. “I’m going to face him down when we get to the new session. I’ll secure a portal or something, make it back out to the Furthest Ring. Find my stupid fucking ghost, score the weapon she somehow blundered into getting. Find the ghost army we’ve been hearing about, if that’s still around. If not… figure something out! And then that’s it. Jack is easy street compared to this, and apparently I did fine against him in the doomed timeline, for all that it was a stupid-ass decision.” 

She finishes speaking, and stops to watch you expectantly. 

You will not tell her not to go. Now that she has come out and said it, you are not even surprised, really. This is the natural culmination of things. Maybe admiration biases you, but you trust her. Trust that it needs to be done. Trust that she has the knowledge to do it. Trust that she would not have chosen _not_ to engage in an epic confrontation, that telling her not to go would be telling her not to be herself. 

It’s _not_ hard, not telling her not to go. You have never let duty not be hard. After all, in the end, isn’t it possible that your other self intended this?

“Aradia says defeating him matters to the preservation of reality,” you say; it’s half-question and half-affirmation. Vriska breathes out in something like relief; reaches to curl her fingers around your wrist. 

“Yeah!” she says. “And - and the others haven’t even brought up how to deal with him! And letting all those ghosts get double-killed, that’d be fucked up, they still have minds, and lives, of some kind, even when they literally _don’t_ have lives, I guess –” 

“And what happens next?” you ask. You do not want to ask it! You are afraid of what she will say. But the words are said when they’re said. 

Vriska’s hand tenses on your wrist like it’s a loaded question. Which it _is_. It is a question, not a request, but it is still somehow asking too much of her. (In a perfect world, what would you ask of her? It’s not as if you know. Not as if you can formulate it, with her in front of you) 

And then the tension releases in her hand, and she tells you with the familiar sound of a smile in her voice. “Well, I come back to the new world and we fuck shit up, of course. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” 

“Oh. Well!” you say. As if it doesn’t indicate something concerning, the hobby you have made of goading her into bringing up the future of her own accord, the challenge it presents, the ever-present hope that she will assure you of that which can’t be assured. As if she can promise you the future. 

That day the two of you eat a poorly-timed dinner alone in a vast, cavernous lab; towards the end, you’re lying on the floor while Vriska finishes an uninspiring-smelling alchemized grubloaf. Suddenly, she says, “I might not even have had to do it if my stupid ghost had gotten off her ass.” 

You think this one over for a moment. “You think she could have fought him herself.” 

“Yeah, if she were any good! But it’s a good thing she hasn’t. Leaves it up to me. If you want a good job done on something, you do it yourself.” Vriska pushes her plate aside, and flops down to join you on the floor. 

“Does anyone else know?” you ask, and she snorts. 

“As if! You were always gonna be the first person I told.” She reaches out to pap you on the cheek, even though you don’t think this is a feelings jam. But the days of attempting to remember strict quadrant rules feel far, far behind you. “You’re the reason I’m here, after all.” 

“I don’t know if saving you from myself actually counts,” you say. It’s not a request for reassurance; just a fact. 

“You know it’s more than that.” Her voice loses its overwhelming certainty for just a moment. She must be tired; indeed, she yawns immediately after. “Sometimes you need a reminder of how deep in your own bullshit you are! And nearly getting stabbed wakes you up.” 

“Nearly stabbing someone wakes you up, too.” That could mean anything, from you. Once more, you are not sure if anything means anything at all. That doesn’t make what you say less true. 

She reaches down to squeeze your hand, so tightly it almost hurts. “We’re almost here,” she says. Her voice brims with confidence, with genuine excitement. And you – 

– You are dissipating, dissolving, lost in a meaning you cannot communicate, but it is not her problem. Duty has never been hard. 

-

“There’s this Trollian log with John I found, you know, from back when we were wigglers,” says Vriska hesitantly, two nights later; you are curled up on her couch, having made it through. “Right when I’d decided to fight Jack. I found it the other night, looking through old shit.” 

This level of direct engagement with the past is strange from Vriska. Or maybe not, then again; back on Alternia, after all, she had used the good old days as a way to antagonize you for something like half a sweep.

“And what did it say?” 

“Oh, hell, a whole lot of nonsense,” groans Vriska. “You know I was embarrassing as shit back then. But there’s also this bit where I say that if I kill Jack…” 

After her voice trails off, you wait for a few minutes, then prompt her with a careful touch on the arm. Despite yourself, you are curious. 

“This is stupid,” she says at last, as you maybe should have expected of her. 

“Tell me anyway?” 

A long sigh. “I knew you’d say that. Fine! I said something about – about making up for…” 

Another pause. “That doesn’t work either. I just said that beating Jack was my last big challenge, and after I did, I’d be able to calm down for a while. And, like, take a break from being the best at stuff. And I was thinking that it made me laugh, because, of course, we _didn’t_ calm down. Nobody can! And Jack’s the least of our worries now. That’s it. Nothing exciting.” 

You breathe in thoughtfully. There’s a strange blueberry flush to Vriska’s cheeks. She is always quite bad at pretending things aren’t important to her when they are. 

It is hard to imagine a Vriska that’s not immersed in the thick of the action. You know it is for her too; that this is why, after all, she reacted so badly to her other self. An ever-evolving set of pieces converges into something like a whole.

“I think,” you say hesitantly, “you and me and Karkat and Kanaya - we’ve been put through two rounds of this shit, coming up on a third. Been in this game longer than anyone else we still know. So regardless of what happens next, I think we deserve to – to do whatever we want. If we want it.” 

“Not while there’s still a massive existential threat to deal with.” 

“I didn’t say that.” Annoyance creeps into your tone. “I meant after.” 

“I know. I was just saying. In case any ghosts are listening!”

You don’t know what to say to that. There may be nothing to say, which worries you more than the possibility of an argument. Arguments are not frightening! They are tiring, at worst. You and Vriska are conscious, always, of where to end a disagreement, what not to say on the grounds of knowing you won’t have meant it later. You must be, by necessity. There are some things you are never doing again, some places you are never going with each other. This is the greatest gift your other self gave you. 

“It’ll be a good fight,” Vriska is saying. “I’m looking forward to it. This is my _real_ last big challenge as a gamer! And I didn’t even have to do anything shitty to get to this one!” 

It should not hurt you that she keeps asking you for encouragement. It should not feel like a test. Duty has never been hard. Difficult choices are difficult, but this is not your choice. Only a far worse person than you would presume to hold her back. You are not - you must never be - something that holds her back.

“They’ll tell stories about it for a very long time,” you say. You think it’s the truth. 

“About the two of us,” she corrects, and you do smile then. You are sure that, once upon a time, this was what you wanted: to be part of a long-told story. An epic, as Rose said. Mindfang and Redglare, part two. A story about partnership, or a story about justice, or once (a long time ago, when you were very young), a story about both.

You’re not sure you want anymore. To be happy, maybe; to know how to be, so you can get there. To feel substantial, to feel worthy. To not lose Vriska. To have just one conversation with your other self. To know you are worthy of either one of them.

Many things, all out of reach. Articulating your desires, you think sometimes, is a bit of a waste of time. 

-

The last weeks trickle away; then the last days. The cold clearwater blue of Skaia looms closer until, the evening before you are set to arrive, Rose announces that it is visible to the naked eye. 

“Or in certain cases perceptible by the nose,” she adds before you can even open your mouth. Her timing has improved. Top marks. A true Seer! 

“Have you considered, Lalonde, that preventing my bits before they happen is its own form of microaggression?” you ask, from where you’re doodling a dragon on one of Vriska’s maps. (She’s letting you. Who said romance was dead?)

“I have not, because it is an incredibly stupid suggestion.” 

“ _Watch_ it, Lalonde, that’s my moirail you’re talking to!” Vriska pipes up. 

What smells like an elegant rude gesture from Rose. A gagging noise from Karkat. A put-upon sigh, deliberately exaggerated, from Kanaya. You respect a group that knows its bits.

You are going to _miss_ them. 

“If I may bring this meeting to order,” says Vriska, standing up to place her hands on the table, “here is the plan. I’ve secured Megido’s time machines from one of the stupid chests on this meteor, and, more impressively, I’ve secured knowledge from her on how to use them. Tomorrow, the moment this meteor crashes into yet another version of the Earth - a trajectory that we have determined should not hurt us – we’re set to get accosted by Harley and one of your teen guardians, both corrupted by Her Imperious Condescension. Luckily, they’re human, so –” Vriska snaps her fingers, for effect, and Rose sighs dramatically. 

(Rose had volunteered herself for ‘practice’ last week, when Vriska had declared that it’s been _years_ since she put a human to sleep. She hadn’t skipped a barb about how it shouldn't be too hard, in Jade’s case. Vriska had pulled out one of the very dramatic sighs that, realistically speaking, Rose should never have demonstrated for her.)

“After I’ve put them to sleep, I take these things and travel back in time to the start of the new session, take a look around. See if I can scope things out.” 

“Are you, like, allowed to do that?” asks Dave, piping up lazily from where you’re pretty sure he and Karkat have been whispering with the Mayor for a good chunk of the meeting. “Or are you a Time player now?” 

“Strider!” says Vriska, grinning dangerously. “Are you volunteering?” 

“Is that a trick question? That sounds like a trick question. Doesn’t sound like you to offer the ability to dispense exposition to just anyone. Also, for the record, fuck no.” 

“As you suspected, it was not a genuine offer,” Vriska says pleasantly. Dave laughs at the other end of the table. He does not seem to dislike Vriska, which is something you never expected. Doesn’t seem to love her, either, but still. You could not have expected when you first pulled her up off the ground that she would have ended this journey as someone who is, at the very least, far from hated. 

The floor of the room is scattered with carpets of various rich, deep scents; the light of the lamps is like honey, like the streets of Prospit, not the stark, flavorless fluorescents that had seen the twelve of you, baffled in the sudden absence of a victory you’d thought assured, stumble into the lab it had once been. You’ve all gotten into the habit of calling it the ‘library’, though there are actual libraries scattered across the meteor; you and Vriska have engaged in more than a few expeditions into them, over the years. 

You can sense, already, the ways that weeks of simplicity, side-by-side happiness with her of a sort you never thought you’d claim for yourself again, will fade into the background of your recollection of these years. Once more, you find yourself mourning them. 

You find yourself mourning her, even though she is not dying, even though she has not left yet. 

Karkat had been leading the way that day, you remember, picking transportalizers almost at random; a numb, hopeless search for purpose. You had not been far behind him. All you’d smelled was cold, unused metal; all you’d heard was your footsteps, sticking close together, and the mingling of voices behind you.

( _It was an Aradiabot, she threw us in - was that supposed to happen? – no, idiot, it wwasn’t – this is unbereefable! – not the fish punth right now, pleathe – it’s not hopeless, there’s gotta be a pawsible solution – not the cat puns, either, for fuck's sake –_ ) 

“So what are we looking for?” you had asked Karkat, after you’d passed through the third transportalizer. You two were standing in this very room, a moment of breath before the others traipsed in and all sense of order dissolved. 

“We’re –” he had started, voice reverberating through the empty room, then stopped. “We’re looking for a cozy fucking place to die, Terezi, are you happy?” 

“Certainly not! But honesty is a virtue.” Humor had been the wrong approach with him, right then. But joining in whatever spiral Karkat was undergoing would have been the wrong approach for _you_ , so clearly there were no winners here. “And really, who says we’re dying?” 

Karkat had opened his mouth for an answer that you were sure would have been deliciously abrasive when Vriska had burst in through the portal. “Is this where we’re settling?” she’d asked. Derisive. “What’s your plan, Vantas, waiting to die?” 

Karkat’s fury had been redirected at her, then, for a bit, and then the others had piled in, and somehow unanimously decided to settle there, in this room with only one visible exit and a delightful selection of broken computers. 

Vriska had never been content with waiting to die. If you had killed her, she would have died poised to turn away, full of stupid impossible bravery, of a fervent desire to prove herself, of everything except common sense. 

You think about the cracks in the Furthest Ring. You think about traveling through the unpredictable, unmappable space of it, and watching it fall apart around you all this time. You think about Lord English. 

_How is what she’s planning now any different then back then?_ you think, and then resent yourself for it. Differences: you cannot see how it will get anyone killed except for Lord English, a lot of ghosts, and possibly (a seize to your heart, an onset of genuine fear) herself. Similarities: you cannot dissuade her. There is nothing you can say that would stop her.

You turn your attention back to the meeting, which is winding down. Vriska, the part of you that’s been half-listening notices, has not brought up her plan. That would be like her; drop it on everyone tomorrow, a dramatic revelation. You feel faintly pleased to know ahead of time. 

Once more, you remember being in this room for the first time. Whispered discussions with Karkat; advance revelations with Vriska. The Terezis of the then and now, standing a few steps behind the leader, hearing their deliberations, legitimizing their voices. It is not a bad position. 

The clock ticks behind you. On Alternia, the sun would be close to rising right now; the hint of an oppressive red light would spill across the sea, displacing green and pink. Vriska would steer the ship towards her hive, blue coat flapping in the wind. You would spend the night on her floor; she’d hold your hand, the way wigglers did. You were never a quadrant; you were a team. Once, that was all you needed to be, forever.

In the usual after-meeting lull (the last one that there will ever be, on this meteor) here are glances, you know, between the other two pairs in the room. The sound of Rose setting down her journal; as she turns toward Kanaya, you can imagine the unspoken words around her ( _it’s our last night_ ), and their meaning, and Kanaya’s answering nod. You can imagine Karkat and Dave exchanging glances out of the corners of their eyes. 

Vriska is not looking at you; she is waiting for the meeting to wrap up. You know, after all, that the last night will come, and be spent together. In some ways, it is much easier between the two of you between the flushed and maybe-flushed pairs. In other ways, of course, it is more complex. (They will not have to lose each other, you think with a trace of envy.) 

Rose and Kanaya leave first, but Kanaya looks at the two of you when she stands in the doorway, as if she’s waiting to say something, something she can’t figure out how to say.

“If you tell us not to stay up all day –” Vriska says, and Kanaya smiles at her thinly. 

“After all these years, you think I’m the greater meddler out of the two of us,” Kanaya says. “This is definitely an accurate assessment.” 

“I learned from the best, Fussyfangs,” says Vriska carelessly; she moves her legs up on the couch to drape them over yours. “Never forget this.” 

“I am writing it down as we speak,” says Kanaya, and then she and Rose have left. Dave and Karkat leave next, with the shifty strides of two people who don’t want to indicate that they’re _certainly_ about to watch a whole lot of shitty human movies back-to-back, and enjoy every second of it, in whatever mysterious quadrant they’re occupying. 

There is a long silence as the door closes. You think that any moment now Vriska will launch back into a re-explanation of strategy, or another point of private insight; that she’ll tell you more about her plans for Lord English and the ghosts and the weapon, or finally explain what she did with Gamzee. (It had been a solo expedition, done before you knew it was happening. She insists that finding out will be a fun surprise.) But she says nothing. Her stance is still and focused; you cannot read her.

“Almost three years ago, can you believe it,” she says at last.

It’s a fill-in-the-blank sentence. You think of the walls of the lab, the lab you don’t call the lab anymore. Almost three years since you witnessed Prospit’s explosion; got wired 413 boonbonds; entered a stupid game of one-upmanship with Vriska. Almost three years since your friends died in alarming numbers; almost three years since you nearly added to the bodycount, and then didn’t. Almost three years since your life split off into two timelines: the one you lived, and the one you didn’t.

Almost three years since you got Vriska back. One day until you might lose her again. 

She is probably looking at you expectantly; waiting for a response. It has at times been the longest three years of your life. Today it feels like the shortest. 

“Vriska,” you say, “have you thought about what you’re doing in the new universe?” 

She stiffens, as you thought she might do. “That doesn’t sound like winner talk.” 

“Winner talk by definition includes deciding what to do with the spoils.” 

“I don’t remember negotiating spoils before we got them, back in our FLARP days.” 

“Objection! That’s all we _ever_ did.” 

She laughs; some of the tension your question has conjured wavers but does not disappear. “Point taken. But not today.” 

You don’t like pushing her. You don’t tend to need to; Vriska is not evasive by nature, at least not with you. In the moment, you hate your temptation to push at the things that she does evade, or makes attempts at evading. 

She sighs. “I don’t know, okay? And I don’t think the priority should be thinking about it. I’ll kill Lord English and _then_ I’ll get the right to consider it. We can - we can fucking brainstorm a list of things.” 

“Yeah.” You are not making yourself sound distant on purpose. For a long moment, then, the two of you sit in a dark and deliberately silent room. You do not like the way it swallows your words. You don’t think you have ever hated anything more. 

One of Rose’s lamps flickers and shuts off. From this close, you can smell the shadows change across Vriska’s face. Her hands do not touch yours. She’s watching you, though. You can always feel it, when she is.

“You don’t have to look like that,” she says. Petulant. The room is so dim; it settles on your sense of color-scent like a layer of dust. All that bursts through is the glint of light in Vriska's eyes. “I haven’t said anything bad. And tomorrow is the big day, Terezi. Tomorrow we’re getting _everything_ we’ve worked for. Hell, the first time we were in this room, I hated you and you hated me and we thought we wouldn’t get out of here alive.” 

(Three years since you half-thought your life would end on this meteor. Three years since you nearly ended hers.)

You are silent. You don’t trust yourself to say what you’re thinking, which is, _is winning worth it, without you?_ , which in itself is an unjust thing to say. It will bring you nothing. It will make you sound like you’re questioning her capacities as a leader; if arguing with her choices is something she expects of you, putting down her long-built-up heroic moments does not fall into this category. 

“Everything that you put in place,” Vriska pushes. “It’s about to pay off. I wish I could see your face when you win! Knowing it’s all because of us!” 

“Not this me,” you want to say, but you can’t find your voice. 

“Terezi,” she says. “Terezi, fuck, you have to say _something._ ” Carefully, she takes your arm.

“Are you actually going to come back?” You’re asking it before you can think about it. This is a kind of doubt, too, but you can’t help it. It is pathetic, as well; as good as telling her that you have just as little of a place in this new world as she does, so long as she is gone. 

Her grip tightens. Her blue lips twist in anger; then relax into something more like confusion. “Well, obviously,” she says. Emphasizes the _b_ sound. It is what you knew she would say. “I’ve never lost a fight. And the plan is rock-solid. It’s not like there’s a chance he’d follow me back. Unless you’re Seeing a way he can, in which case, fuck you for sitting on that –” 

“No!” You don’t tell her you haven’t Seen the battle; tried to, but can’t. You can trace the logical paths, see (if not See) her finding the weapon. But from there, the path of choice is dark. You do not have a way to envision Lord English. For something that is supposed to matter a lot, he has always been a point of abstraction; absurdity, even. 

“Then what –” 

“We could all die tomorrow."

“That’s _not_ a - you guys will have Crocker, she can revive people, of all the things to -“ 

“I meant you, Vriska.” All this time, your pusher beats far too fast. The light that was dim and distant a few moments ago seems bright and oppressive now, makes you want to sneeze. You turn your face away from it. Vriska still has legs still slung over you, as if there is no argument happening at all.

“You always worry about the dumbest things,” she says. “I’m coming up with contingencies in my head right now, trying to prevent your death! And you’re sitting here worrying about a God Tier! That’s me, by the way. I god tiered. Remember?” 

“God Tier doesn’t matter if you’re dying heroic. Who needs a lesson in mechanics now? If you’re going out in any way, that’s how, so -“ 

Of all things, she throws herself forward to kiss you. Just once, and quickly. Like she’s making fun of you. As she says, “Nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” ridiculously sincere, you feel a pit widen inside you. 

“You are not helping!” you tell her fiercely. “I don’t think you have ever been less helpful in your life.” 

She has the gall to meet this with a skeptical silence, as if to ask, _are you suuuuuuuure?_ You see her point. This does not make you less angry. 

A long, long sigh. “I just meant it was nice of you to – I thought it was nice…” She trails off, which is unusual. “You’re right,” she says at last. “You’re right that I’d go out Heroic. But I’m also not _planning_ on it.” 

“Would be pretty stupid if you were planning on it.” 

“Which is why I’m not! This isn’t – this isn’t some kind of Lalonde-and-Strider-blow-up-the-sun situation! I’m coming back. I told you I’m coming back.” She pauses; then keeps talking. Her grip on you tightens. “Just imagine me. Landing in the new universe. Carrying some kind of cool battle spoil, like – big green skull under my arm, horrible tacky green coat over my shoulders. And first thing I’m doing is telling you my concrete fucking plans for what happens next. I’ll have plenty of time to think of some on the way back.” 

You can’t read if it’s sincere. Maybe just for tonight you don’t need to. It serves a function; just to carry you through, just to keep you from saying anything horribly embarrassing, something that will weigh on her unnecessarily, anything that bubbles up in you and gets lost in a sea of timelines, a sea of thoughts. It serves a function: hope. It gives you an image, stupid and unrealistic, where there had been no image before.

That makes you think that maybe you have been unfair to her. You cannot see past tomorrow any better than she can.

“Trust me,” she whispers. “I have all the luck. It’s a tough fight, yeah. My toughest yet! But that’s what makes it so great. That’s what’ll make it so great when I come back!” 

“Yeah,” you say, and twist around to face her; reach out your arms to pull her closer to you. She is a familiar angled weight against you. Your pusher aches at the thought of impending loss. _Duty has never been hard_ , you remind yourself. If you say it often enough, it begins to be true. 

“I’m sorry,” you say at last. “This has not been the height of productive dialogue! But it’s weird. It’s weird that tomorrow things start _happening_. I’ll have to interact with a whole new gang of sappy human losers!”

“As if you won’t love fucking with them,” says Vriska. “I’m almost sad I won’t be there to see it!” A long pause; then she clears her throat. “The beginning stages, I mean. By the time I’m back, they might be somewhat used to your bullshit.”

“Don’t be rude, Vriska,” you say. “I have years worth of bullshit in me.” 

“Of course you do.” 

She leans forward. “I’ll come back,” she says; redundant at some point. (If you say it often enough –)

As she always does, she pokes the triangle shape of her index and pointer fingers against your own hand. You lift your own hand to complete the diamond, but it’s barely been held a moment before you’re grabbing her hand straight-out, and pulling her towards you to kiss her.

This one is not pale. It lasts too long; you clutch at her shoulders too tightly. You don’t know what red would feel like, nor black. Maybe it would have a shade of that desperation; that sense that the world could end at any point. But the world has already ended; all that comes next is the darkness of the unknown, and a million branching possibilities you can’t read.

And you can’t read this present moment either, but you can read that Vriska holds you, too, doesn’t stop you or pull away. That she’s clutching your hand like she knows what you’re asking her for, which is more than _you_ know.

When she finally pulls away, both of you face each other for a long moment, breathing hard, wondering what the hell any of that meant. And then she paps your cheek absentmindedly, ruffles your hair, clumsily moves off of you to flop the full length of herself back down onto the couch. 

Neither of you, you know, will try to unpack what that meant. What that meant did not matter. The determination of meaning must wait until battles are won. 

As if she’s read your mind, she hops off the couch and reaches a hand out. “Come on, let’s sleep in my block,” she says. “Gamer pro tip, always sleep properly before engaging in epic confrontations with the Lord of Time.” 

_Time,_ you think, when you are in her recuperacoon with her arms are wrapped around you, when the familiar effects of kind-of-shitty alchemized sopor wash over you. You had always known it would catch up.

She whispers a good day, snakes a hand up to tangle in your hair. It could be any other night. But it’s the last one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, i apologize profusely to anyone who has notifications turned on. the battle with ao3 never ends.


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are alone in space with nothing but the soft sound of your rocket wings at your back, your own breaths, and the beginning of the headache that comes with tears. The boundaries between spaces, between universes. However long you are alone, your other self has been alone longer.
> 
> You want to understand. Or maybe, knowing you have to, you want to learn how to live without her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads-up; this chapter has a bit where it dives (non-graphically) into the emotional impact of game over timeline gamrezi, with all that this implies. if you want to skip it, control+f for “you have a lot of blood, it turns out” after getting to "gamzee's interference has not escaped you."

Vriska is up already when you wake; it’s early enough that it would still be dangerously light on Alternia, even though you’re not colliding with the others’ Earth until mid-afternoon. She has slung her arms out of the window of the cupe, facing away from you. 

You do not need to have the feeling it is going to be a long day! You know this with utter certainty. Its length, in fact, is not improved by Vriska’s pacing around every available surface, muttering under her breath. At one point, Dave passes through the library and elbows you unceremoniously. 

“What’s she doing?” he asks. “Was going over the plan at length last night not enough?” 

Vriska is, in fact, practicing a variety of leaderly speeches, adjusted to various circumstances. You have enough respect for her personal mythology to not share this fact. 

“Dave,” you say instead, “there are untold numbers of unknown variables in the opening chapters of the upcoming adventure! A strategist’s work never ends.” You smile at him, then, an intimidation tactic that you’re starting to think lost its power around year two. Life is terribly unjust sometimes. 

It says enough about the weight of anticipation upon all of you that the emergence of a very angry Jade Harley, accompanied by the crackle of power in the air and the faint afterimage of the Green Sun’s scent, is somewhat of a relief.

Once the plan unfolds as expected, Kanaya hoists an unconscious Jade over her shoulder; Vriska generates a fenestrated plane with the apparatus the two of you and Rose have worked on endlessly for the past few weeks. She is talking through last-minute explanations of the prison raid, figuring out who will look after Jade, occasionally snapping at the others to pay attention. 

At the point that Karkat’s _Vriska, I swear to fuck –_ sounds on the right end of genuinely threatening, you move away from Vriska’s maps of the Dersian dungeon to put a hand on her shoulder. You don’t say anything, but she turns to you and takes a breath. 

“We’re gonna do great,” she says. “Of course we’re gonna do great, I’m in charge.” 

“Obviously.” It’s always been like this; she hasn’t needed _you_ to say reassurance at her, only to say it to you. You’re not sure, at the end of the day, if she ever needs your confirmations. But you think she likes them. 

Even now, you smell blue lips turn up. Blueberry lipstick defined starkly against gray skin; she has taken longer to get ready today. She is preparing, you know, for an audience. “Fuck yes,” she says. “Let’s get started.” 

You are second after her into the plane. You don’t realize you’ve left this meteor until you’re already falling through darkness. 

-

While you wait for Vriska to return with the time machines, the victory platform is quiet. 

You think, uncharitably, that she could have set them to return for the very moment after she left. But she has given herself time for a dramatic return. All things considered, you should have predicted this. 

Blurs of red and black are huddled on one end of the meteor, with the accompanying form of the limp Jade; Rose and Kanaya are perched on the other edge. You do not bother approaching the latter two; hearing Rose cry out when the long golden glint of Evil Cherry-Strawberry Crocker’s trident had killed her teenage mother in one shot had been harder than you’d admit to anyone. 

Apparently there’s another version on the way. Vriska’s reminder of the fact had been nearly tactful. Still, though; she is huddled close with Kanaya, and the apprehension you’ve heard in her voice all afternoon does not invite intruders. The same is true for Dave and Karkat. 

There are only two more figures on the platform; a bright-lemon God Tier boy in funny undershorts, and Brainwashed Crocker herself. The latter is unconscious; the former huddled next to her, seemingly deep in thought. When you’d directed your attention to him, he’d flinched away; you had smiled, which had elicited the same response. At the time, you’d somewhat appreciated a new chump to bully, following a three-year chump drought. Now, you almost regret the loss of a conversational partner. _Almost_. 

Not that he seems all that willing to talk to you, really; he is squatting near the unconscious Crocker. Far enough away, you think, to make a hasty escape should she wake up; close enough to defend her should a member of your party feel the need for an attempt on their lives. Whatever their session has resembled, you decide, it’s clear that the absence of some thirteen-year-old murderers’ dubious influence has left it either too interesting or not interesting enough. 

Maybe you aren’t even in a mood to socialize, not right now. Or maybe you are in the mood to socialize with Vriska, who is wasting minute after minute on building up needless suspense, as if there could not be more suspense than there already is, as if your time with her is not more finite now than ever –

She has never been yours, you remind yourself. You have always known what mattered to her. Your other self had brought her back with that knowledge; that she didn’t deserve to die, of course, but also that she is Heroic at her core, in her life and in her eventual death. You will never matter as much. You have never had the capacity to. 

Rose’s head, you think (it is hard to tell from this far off) is on Kanaya’s shoulder; Dave is making Karkat laugh, softly enough that he thinks the others can’t hear. If Vriska doesn’t come back from this fight, or even if (as you are nearly sure she will) she takes her damn time doing so, you know this is how it will stay. Even if you were talking to Hopey Lemon Undershorts, this would be how it stayed. 

Separateness curls in the pit of your stomach. This is your destiny, then. To kill her or to watch her leave; to hurt her or to be left behind by her. 

Vriska comes back; a sprite-ified Tavros and a funny red Equius arrive shortly after, apparently having been here all along. You argue with her over kernelsprites, your heart not fully in it; when she tells you what you’ve suspected about the contents of the fridge, you cannot find it in you to be satisfied, or amused, or surprised. You know you don’t want to deal with him. You know that you are back to the _you_ that you were in the opening weeks of the meteor journey. A shadow-image of yourself; an echo of something that must have existed, once, but no longer does. 

The Queen of Justice, she calls you sarcastically, and it feels like the echo of an old argument; of a million old arguments. You both choose not to take it too far. This fails to make you feel better. 

When you have your last feelings jam, or something like it, you let yourself indicate the degree to which you need her, something you’ve been trying to avoid lately. Not because you think you could convince her to stay for your sake; besides knowing she wouldn’t take the bait, you would die before you choose to entrap her like that. When she reassures you she’ll see you again, the rising tide of dread in you is quelled. But only for a moment. 

Behind that fridge, you make a diamond with your fingers; she brushes your hair out of your face for a moment, smiling at you fondly, absentmindedly, and then calls one last battle plan to order. This, too, you fade into the background of. It is a shame that, for however long she plans to be gone, her last impressions of you will always be an admission of your own uselessness and a series of long silences. But this is not within your control. 

When she leaps into the fenestrated plane, you know in advance that she will not look back at you. You are right! A point for mind powers, or just for common sense.

-

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Honesty is a painful thing, as is truth. That is to say: honesty with Vriska is a painful thing, just as it is with yourself. The Incipisphere is vast around you, black and almost empty, aside from the glow of planets behind and ahead of you. This is almost a relief. Floating through space in endless anticipation of something you don’t know the name or shape of is frustrating, but it has become some kind of safety, too. You don’t know what to do with this fact. 

Tears had started to run down your face halfway through closing out of Trollian; their own type of a goodbye, a goodbye that you know you will need, even if it’s only for a time. When the first audible sob had escaped you, it had seemed to you like the loudest sound in Paradox Space. 

You think of your other self. It was a loss she had survived, temporarily. She had figured out how to work through herself, to be important. 

You are alone in space with nothing but the soft sound of your rocket wings at your back, your own breaths, and the beginning of the headache that comes with tears. The boundaries between spaces, between universes. However long you are alone, your other self had been alone longer. 

You want to _understand_. Or maybe, knowing you have to, you want to learn how to live without her. At this breaking point, you are finally not sure you can. 

When your memory breaks open, it does not feel like an interrogation. It’s a boundary, lifted; a flood, released; something that was always there, illuminated. 

You catch only glimpses at first –

_(– You know you are stupid, wrigglerish, even, for giving in to this. You had forgotten how angry she made you, in person. You wonder what had made her show up on your planet uninvited._

_You are as good as her in a fight. She stabs you in self-defense, a cheap, stupid shot; you wonder if she’s stealing your luck. Whatever she was doing, it leads to you stumbling and falling, and her hissed-out “Fuck!!!!!!!!” When she kneels down to pull you to your feet, you try, weakly, to shove her away._

_“You stabbed me! Can’t take that back! What the fuck are you doing?”_

_“Where’s your quest bed?” she says urgently._

_“Having regrets already? Didn’t know you were capable of it.”_

_“Shut up and tell_ _me, or do I have to find it myself?”_

_Of course you know where it is. It has been prickling at the back of your mind, but you have been busy with everything else – and weren’t sure, really, that you had the nerve. But Vriska lays you down on the teal-hued rock, and her movements are bizarrely gentle. “I don’t know what your game is –” you’re starting to say, straining to speak through pain, and then she lifts her sword._

_“I’m not letting you bleed out here for hours,” she murmurs, just before it comes down on your neck._

_When you rise on the Battlefield, everything is clear to you, sight thankfully unrestored, fractal paths of intent and action spiraling out from everyone you encounter. The robes are soft; they smell like the trunks of your forest, a bit like your own blood. You skirt around Vriska with suspicion. You do not talk about that afternoon, though you speculate that maybe this was her plan all along; that she is trying to craft herself a rival on her own level.)_

_(You kill her in the opening minutes of that same duel, and you look down at her, filled slowly with emotions you don’t understand. This was not thought out. You were meant to be better than this._

_She comes back laughing; the death is not Just or Heroic._

_Things change after the duel. The Black King lands an unfortunate blow on her early in the game; it is Heroic, this time. For you it is just a death –)_

_(You die in the Black King’s battle again. You die by Gamzee’s hand, Karkat at your side. You are killed by Jack several times over; you are killed by Eridan, burning tasteless white with wrath and hope.)_

_(You kiss Karkat several times, kiss Aradia, kiss Kanaya.)_

_(You troll Rose; she gives barbs back as good as she gets, and Kanaya hovers over your shoulder, watching your laptop screen. Vriska brags about Jade’s space powers from the other end of the lab.)_

_(You kiss Vriska pale. You kiss Vriska black. Just once, you kiss Vriska red. There is something missing each time. You kill Vriska, premeditated each time, burning with what you tell yourself is a sense of justice. There is something missing there, too.)_

_(You kill Eridan, you maim Gamzee. You tell yourself justice is done. You kill Vriska, again and again and again,_ and each time you do, the you that is a _you_ and not some kind of floating unembodied concept clenches her fists where she floats in the incipisphere.)

( _You lower your sword, and she rains blueberry pixie dust onto the platform where you stand. When Jack kills you, the death is not quick. You do not wonder about your other self; you are too busy cursing this one. You do indulge, stupid as it is, the thought of whether Vriska will know you died, and how. You do, stupid as it is, hope that it will not hurt her just as you hope it will shatter her. You know that you signed up for this; that you knew to kill her, and didn’t. There is no life left for you to live with or without her in it, but you die hating yourself more than her –)_

There are other worlds you can see, further off. _[Some machination of fate stops you from playing Sgrub; you grow up; you chase her down. You do not meet her as a child, but as an adult; something in how she talks draws you. She kills her lusus, or doesn’t. She is fugitive, admiral, spymaster, pirate. You wear the teal, all across the timelines; sometimes for a little while, and sometimes to the end of your life. Each time, you are frighteningly good at it.]_

_[You defend her; she defends you. You kill her, you kill her, you kill her. You hate her. She hates you. She loves you. She does terrible things. So do you.]_

But this is too far. If you are to See, to Remember, you _have_ a destination in mind. It is the closest world to yours; next-door, if there were doors; just a wall away, if there were walls. It is not hard to pull back, to focus in, even as you see the sheer expanse of your possibilities. It was not far away. It has been following you, after all, all this time. 

-

_(Your sword slides into her back. It is quick. Sharp and clean. You hear her gasped breath, strangled; you cannot tell if she is shocked. She must be. You know she thought that you couldn’t do it. You know she must have wondered if you could._

_“Terezi!” Karkat’s voice is wracked with relief, with worry; his footsteps are running towards you, then slow down as he takes in the scene. You hate him for pitying you, for trying to evaluate the scene, trying to figure out what you’re feeling. If you don’t know, nobody else has the right to. But you are not above, just once, folding into him when he opens his arms to hold you. You clutch at his shoulders like you’re drowning; your own vulnerability surprises you. It is a vulnerability_ that, in this universe, he has never known from you. 

_You wonder how much he knows. You wonder if he is angry at you, for adding to the bloodshed. You shake, but your eyes are dry. Adrenaline is still coursing through you; there is no room for words except for “We’re alive,” or “I did what I had to do.” You wish Neophyte Redglare could see you._

It was nice, back then, to believe in an ancestor. It was nice to believe that, just across thousands of years, there could be somebody with answers. It was nice to know that somebody came before you, _somebody whose wrongs you are righting. There was no trial, but there are no courtrooms left. But it was as fair a trial as you could make it. You are uniquely qualified for it. It was right. The Game said so! It was Just. It was Just, or she'd be alive.)_

_(You are able to joke with Dave and Rose, you are able to elbow Dave conspiratorially and move away from Karkat all too fast. Karkat, whose caring is as stifling as it is frightening. Karkat, whom you have not known long enough, and have known too long.)_

_(“So you killed her, huh?” Dave asks, and you can say to him, “I had to.” He doesn’t have a lot to say in response. If the words frighten him, you cannot yet read the sounds of smells of him well enough to know this for sure. Though maybe his silence says enough.)_

_(There are things you can only say to strangers. But then Dave is not a stranger, and you say fewer things to him. Dave’s not a stranger, and you know his smells and sounds, and the times you say things that hurt him, on purpose or by accident, become harder to go through with._

_You kiss him a few times, in Can Town. Two kids who don’t know what to do with their hands. Dave doesn’t kiss pale or red or black but human, whatever that means; he doesn’t know what to say afterwards and neither do you. You sit across from him, towards the end, and imagine it; two pairs of shades mirroring each other. There are things you can’t say. There are things neither of you will ever say to the other.)_

_(You cannot think ‘She was my sister once, and I killed her’ the first time you pass through that same spot on the meteor, and search for the smell of blue blood where it has been judiciously cleaned up. You cannot think, ‘she didn’t think I would do it’ every time you catch a whiff of Rose’s orange robes. You cannot think ‘I shouldn’t have done it’ the first time you long, irrationally, for Dave to ask_ _you something about yourself, to exclaim something melodramatic, to feign loud self-assurance rather than cool distance.)_

_(You cannot say, “I miss Vriska,” the first time the thought crosses your mind, articulated.)_

_(“Is it weird to miss somebody who did nothing but cause problems?”_

_You say it to Aranea, in the end, a stranger disguised as a friend. Her company is nice, for a time. You like to listen, you like to receive information. She is easy to trust, because she reminds you of - well, she does not remind you of Vriska, but she reminds you of the Vriska that Vriska tried to be sometimes, composed and self-important with a trace of condescension. But they both like to talk, and you are not opposed to hearing people talk. It reveals things about them, sometimes things they did not mean to reveal. This was once exciting. Now it is harder to search for the hidden parts of dialogue or intention.)_

_(You have taken to sitting in rooms alone, charting out on walls the memory of how that day unfolded. Gamzee’s interference has not escaped you, and you wonder if you have always been stupid: suggestible, manipulable, vulnerable to your own tricks made crude. He does not find you, in this one; you seek him out. When he asks, “So what’s to be done about my unrighteous breach of motherfucking justice, sister?” and leans in close, you are not sure what you’re thinking. Maybe ‘I’ll stop him.’ Or maybe ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’ Or maybe, as the scents of mildew and grape Faygo wash over you, ‘I deserve this.’)_

_(It does not happen all at once. At first it is nice, in a way, to really tear into someone again. Someone who expects you to hurt them; someone you don’t have to feel guilty about eviscerating. Still, he does not react; nothing you say to him penetrates him, which makes you try harder, makes you play into his games, leaves you with a horrible aftertaste in your mouth and a burning headache._

_When he touches you, you retreat to the back of your head. You fight back less and less and think about the things you are letting him say that Vriska would have stabbed someone for already. But you are all of the worst of her with none of the best. In a way you are worse than her, because all that you have dedicated your life to is finding justifications to kill, stumbling into ways to pretend you are doing something just. Alternia. Blood. Redglare. The Alpha Timeline.)_

_(When Gamzee starts after your eyesight, when you see the effortless way in which Latula commands a room, you go to Aranea. Light hits your eyes for the first time in sweeps, and you see a face that is Vriska’s and isn’t; softer lines, a pleased and placid expression. Instantly, you hate her.)_

_(What the fuck were you trying to prove? To him, to yourself, to a ghost of Vriska that doesn’t exist? She is not gone; you have not forgotten her just because your world is being assaulted by senses you have not needed; she weighs you down heavier than ever. But your lusus feels deader than ever. And Alternia is gone, and its sun has collapsed into itself, and not a trace remains of the universe that made them. You can see, but you will never see the Alternian sea again. Never smell it, either; never perceive a trace of the world you occupied even moments ago. Alternia is dead, and Vriska is dead, and you are wiping the last traces of them from yourself, as if that helps.)_

_(You’re lying on your side. In the dark, because the light hurts your eyes, even the dim, clinical light of the meteor’s endless rooms. There’s Faygo trickling from a tipped-over bottle. You watch it, because watching is a thing you can do, because all you are doing is leading yourself down a spiral of choices that disconnect you from whoever Terezi Pyrope was._

_A dark room. An ache in your ribs. Messages you are not answering, though Dave doesn’t message you anymore, and Karkat barely tries, and you never bothered to make friends with Rose and Kanaya._

_Soda spreads across the floor; you watch it. Red. The color enough people saw and decided to define as such, assigned a name to. When you tasted red, you thought you were tasting something essentially itself. Seeing it, you think it’s nothing more than a word and the appearance of something, disconnected. This goes for most words, like ‘justice,’ or ‘self.’)_

_(On a rare occasion when you are not with Gamzee, or trying to sleep, or mired in a sugar-red haze, when lucid enough to want to be anywhere, anywhere else at all, you wander into a lab and find Rose. “They used to call the sea wine-dark,” she slurs. “The, fucking, mytho– mythogly– mythoglogical - the Greeks.”_

_This is not a statement that means anything to you. You don’t know why you want to cry, then. You are never going to see (or hear, or smell) the Alternian sea again. You cannot come back to it, nor to the girl who sailed it with you. You can get your eyesight back, but that, it turns out, was the unimportant part. You can wipe impact but not memory. All you can do is ruin yourself._

_“Can you See anything?” she asks quietly. “You’re a Seer, too. Mbabye you can - I can’t see a damn thing.”_

_“Fuck you, do you think I’ve even tried?” Honesty. You didn’t mean for that to happen. Your head hurts._

_“You’re good at. What are they. Choices. Do you think Kanaya’s going to break up with me?” she asks, her voice wavering in a way you hadn’t thought her capable of. Her face closes over a moment later, some level of self-possession returning in the face of a stranger. In a different world, you think you could have been something like friends._

_She can’t hide it from you now, though. She’s frightened. She is the child that you both are. She is frightened, and you hate her for it._

_Not being loved the way you want to, you want to tell her, is not the same as loss. Not being forgiven is not the same thing as not having anyone to ask forgiveness from. But you say nothing. Scrub a hand over your face. Leave the room.)_

_(On LOLAR, Rose looks at you with your sunglasses on her face, and you are able to look back. Aside from tired, or miserable, or everything that you have already been for far, far too long, you are suddenly angry. Like light in your eyes, there is a sense of justice burning through you, and that is a little bit more you, though not the you you’ve been sure you should have ever been. Then there is a red scarf obscuring your sight, and that is a little bit more you, too._

_When you stab Gamzee, he talks for a moment like he used to when you were kids, which makes you freeze. You are remembering six-sweep old Vriska bleeding out on the floor, and you are wondering how many times you must hurt people over things that are your own fault._

_Then he hits you, again and again, and then Karkat falls into the flames below you, the very same flames you had once observed through a Trollian viewport. Rose and Kanaya follow. You are ready to take your revenge on Aranea (not revenge – justice! – but justice was only a word and some appearances and no connection between the two) and the sword pierces you.)_

_(You have a lot of blood, it turns out. Enough to write out instructions, at least. Enough to cling to life for now. Enough to See, enough to fix a timeline._

_Connections and causalities shine bright in your head; your own memories, the links between them. The sense that you will remember something for the rest of your life. Your last day on Alternia, the trial; that conversation with Karkat, the one that had made you feel like a bold second-in-command, a brave participant in something important. You are glowing, inside, with the confidence that you can fix it. All of it._

_When you write it - KNOCK H3R OUT! YOU C4N’T L3T M3 K1LL H3R, maybe your powers do sense success. Maybe you know her, and know that if you direct her at whatever problem you are facing, she will be able to overcome it. Like a weapon. Like a final, desperate roll of the dice._

_You’re not thinking about this, though, not really. You’re thinking that this is your greatest mistake. Thinking you love her, regardless of whether this is tenable, regardless of whether this is fair. Justice to a timeline, if justice exists._

_Somewhere, another Terezi will not have to lose her. Will live past this point; will grow, regardless of where that brings her. It is a comforting thing to know._

_You chart out the chalk outline of your fall. You die.)_

All this passes in seconds, and then you are ready to check out; you have been hit in the span of a moment and of three years and of a thousand with more knowledge than you ever hoped to acquire; more knowledge that you know what to do with. 

But the memory does not end. 

_(You wander through the dream bubbles, a space which is disintegrating around you. Has disintegrated around you, for almost as long as you have traveled through it. You do not know where you’re going. You are not sure where to go. You think you might be double-dead soon, anyway._

_In death, you are blind again._

_There are no dream bubbles here. In whatever part of the void you’ve wandered into, there is nothing but the darkness that falls apart above you and, for some reason, a path beneath your feet._

_Sparkly red shoes against blank gray against the endless black of the void. Space smells a little like the sea. You follow the path. Fuck it, what else is there to do?_

_She is out there somewhere. The Vriska you killed. Or maybe she isn’t; maybe she’s been double-dead for ages, now. You remember her, though; try to give yourself time to think about her in a way you haven’t let yourself for a while now. Remember your campaigns, the breaks between them. Remember sailing home. Remember being happy; on false pretenses, maybe, your false pretenses and not hers, but you were happy nonetheless. Her hand clutched tight in yours on the bow of the ship. The patterns she drew out for Redglare and Mindfang's uniforms._

_Time is different in death; you don’t bother to track it. When you catch your first awareness of a figure far-off, another half to the void-path you’re walking, a pusher that doesn’t beat anymore skips a beat anyway._

_She is changed, when you see her up close, but you don’t have time to evaluate this. Blueberry smudge on her shoulder that might be a tattoo; a different shape to her hair; it doesn’t matter. It’s her. It’s her, and you know what her anger smells like, how fast she breathes when she’s angry. This is not it._

_She is looking at you, instead, with something that might be apprehension; something that might be hope. You run the last few steps to close the distance between you._

_There’s a hundred conversations you rehearsed with her in your head; a million apologies; a few precious, near-unsayable confessions. You do not say any of them; not because you can’t, but because you don’t need to. She reaches out to take your hand._

_As Paradox Space disintegrates, you wrap your arms around each other; stand close, making up for years of every kind of distance. Everything that either of you have been trying to articulate to yourselves is something you both already understand. It is not black, or pale, or red, or even human, but something else altogether. The only thing it ever was._

_Void breaks apart above you._ You open your eyes.)

-

You open your eyes where they have been squeezed tight in memory of your other self. They are unseeing, as you prefer them; as they have stayed. They are also wet with tears. You can almost feel the imprints of the ghost-Vriska’s arms around you. 

You wrinkle your nose; the black of the Incipisphere is not so different from the black of the Furthest Ring, but the iridescent cracks of disintegration are not visible here. Only the green planet far away. Only one rendezvous left, a bit part in what you hope is a conclusion. 

Dave does not ask you, when you land on the Land of Tombs and Krypton, why your cheeks are flushed or your eyes or wet. He is not talkative, as a whole, which suits you fine. 

Standing back to back with the Striders, you smell the dark spots of the Jacks against the lime-green sky. In another time and place, Vriska is lifting her dice. It is time to end a story.

-

When you land on the victory platform, Dave is shaking; you can tell from the sound of his breaths, the faint unsteadiness in his hands when he claps you on the shoulder and says, “Good fight, TZ.” 

You think you make some noise of assent; say something that passes for funny between the two of you. You do have enough vague concern for the wellbeing of Strider Remix, Mixed Berry Flavor to watch his head get reattached. You exchange spirited barbs with John, then with Rose’s guardian. 

There are ways, you know, not to feel alone here. Or to put off feeling alone, at least. But there are collisions of color, strange ones and familiar ones, all around you. (Black and red; not much touching, but a quickness in step, held elbows. Orange and green; an exuberant embrace, a scramble across the platform to join the previous two. Lemon and mixed berry; a hesitant approach, the start of a conversation.) 

You can’t help it. Walk to the edge of the platform; face the darkness ahead of you. The darkness you are meant to vacate, once this universe launches itself, once this door opens. 

A part of you is waiting for a triumphant landing; for you to be the first person she looks at, the first hand she takes. For the things that you haven’t told her, even in those messages you sent before remembering. For a response, even. An ETA might have been nice. 

“Are you looking for something? Should we all be watching space mysteriously, a little to the side?” You’ve only heard the voice a few times; it’s Mixed Berry Strider, head reattached. Lemon Undershorts is with him. You wave, showing your teeth. 

“I am not looking at anything!” you say, lifting your glasses for a second. “I find the implication insulting.” 

Dirk Strider doesn’t flinch, while his companion looks at you with a sense of pleasant, generalized distance. “I said _for_ , not _at_.” 

“Rose!” you call. “Come quick, I’ve found the source of your insufferable word games!” 

Rose finds her way over through the loose crowd that is gathering around where the Door is about to form. She and Dirk strike up a conversation behind you, and you turn away from that too. You can see John and Karkat at the front; two leaders you’ve stood behind before, directed quietly. Encouraged, apparently, to rescue a timeline. 

A new universe ahead of you. An unresolved thread behind. Somewhere, Vriska is being a hero, a leader you can no longer direct. In that same somewhere, she might love you and might not. Here, you love her, which was the biggest thing you ever successfully hid from yourself. 

The void she has disappeared into feels a little smaller. It is not the longest distance you have found each other across. That assurance will not be enough forever, but it has to be enough for right now.

You are the last to step through the door, and you are not Vriska, which means that just before you do, you turn to face the space behind you. 

The darkness remains stubbornly empty. You close the Door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow! i'm nearly done, holy fuck! (posted this chapter instead of reviewing submissions for the literary journal i'm working on for digital studies credit. priorities, right?) 
> 
> the pesterlog section is, obviously, not mine but from page 7948 of homestuck


	14. AFTERWORD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There is nothing more seductive, more terrible, than the story of our own life, the one we do not want to hear and will do anything to listen to." 
> 
> \- Troll Mary Ruefle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surrender; dependence. You had thought you were smart enough not to depend. Not after losing everybody. It is good that this other Vriska lost everybody again; it's what she deserves. It's what she deserves for forgetting it could happen! 
> 
> \- 
> 
> Loose ends are wrapped up. Warning for Vriska-typical self-hatred and implied/potential indifference to her own death.

Your name is Vriska Serket, and your ghost is just as pathetic as you had expected. 

You want her to yell at you. Really! You welcome the fight. You want to enter an entire fucking dialogue with her. You want to throw Terezi’s moirallegiance in her face, the degree to which you’ve _earned_ it, earned what you know she wanted and sure as hell isn’t getting. Want to face her sniveling arguments and shoot each one down. Want to see her face fall when you say Terezi’s name. 

She doesn’t have anything of the sort for you. Just her tears, to add insult to injury. You do not like to watch yourself cry. You didn’t even want to make her cry. Or: you did, but you hadn’t wanted to find yourself that pathetically weak. 

So yeah, you’re breathing hard when you walk away from her; your whole body is overtaken by the thrumming physical awareness of your own anger. You have not felt like this for a long time. Not since you killed Tavros, maybe. Maybe longer. 

It had used to happen often, a consistently mortifying loss of control. Your thirteen year old self had spent a definitively excessive amount of time yelling at Aradia for not paying enough attention to you, leaving whiny little messages in Terezi’s Trollian inbox. Bugging Tavros with shit that – shit that you maybe shouldn’t have said, or said quite so loudly and so often.

This isn’t that. This isn’t hurting the undeserving. This is a tragic failed attempt to get someone who should fucking _know_ better to realize the extent of her stupidity. You had not just wanted to yell; you’d wanted to hit her, see if the horrible, subservient expression of total surrender would wipe itself off her all-too-familiar face. Every flaw that you’d ever seen in yourself had seemed magnified tenfold in her stupid outfit, in her wounded, trusting expression. The slouch of her shoulders, one of them arbitrarily and stupidly tattooed, follows you as you walk away from her. 

Surrender; dependence. You had thought you were smart enough not to _depend_. Not after losing everybody. It is good that this other Vriska lost everybody again; it's what she _deserves_. It's what she deserves for forgetting it could happen! 

She had looked at Meenah with a desperate expression that turns your stomach. You don’t know what had _happened_! It is not as if she has not lived your life; it is not as if she hasn’t lost more important people. Where did she learn to be capable of that? Where did she get the _gall_ to act like she was better than you?

You don’t want this. Nobody in their right minds would want this. Terezi wouldn’t want this in you, either, this kind of pathetic dependence. She’d hate it. She would. You clench your fists and take a deep breath, because the thought has left you unexpectedly shaken. 

Terezi set you up to be a hero, not some kind of weeping doormat. And the Scourge Sisters are about _collaboration_ , not tear-soaked dependence.

(You had woken up on the reclining platform the morning after Terezi showed up _crying_ at your doorstep, crying like she never had when you were kids, not as long as you can remember. Terezi made _other_ people cry. She didn’t cry when she was hurt, nor when she was angry (the latter had been your thing, once upon a time when you’d been younger and weaker and stupider.) So what the _fuck_ were you supposed to do? 

She was in your arms then, squashed against you. A heavy comforting weight. Her eyes were closed. Some hints of teal had dried around them overnight. 

_I think I did all right,_ you’d thought. Being comforting was new to you, but you could do comforting. You could do anything you set your fucking mind to! _Anything_. And you fucked up being moirails with Kanaya, but Kanaya had always been better than you, smarter than you; you’re still not sure, in the end, why she’d even kept you around. Maybe the shittiness had been pretty funny sometimes. This is your best guess. Yeah, you’re sticking to that. 

Terezi, though. Terezi had come looking for you; as much weird uncertain panic as you’d felt when she’d shown up at _your_ door, not Karkat’s and not Strider’s or Kanaya’s, you were glad she did. She must have needed you. Her other self made plans to keep you around; she must have known about this, somehow. It must have been part of the puzzle Terezi was so desperate to solve.

You wondered what fucked her up badly enough that she got like this. It couldn’t be trying to kill you. She’s tried to kill you before. (You squeezed your eyes shut from the memory, then filed it away. That sure as hell doesn’t matter now; she kept the marks of your revenge, and you did away with hers.)

So here you were. Something had happened, and whatever it was, Terezi seemed to need you. Seemed to _like_ you, like spending time with you. Before the game, you hadn’t bothered to dream, _properly_ dream, of her liking you for a sweep. 

In the world that precedes a flash of blue and a fist in your jaw, the only thing you’d had to offer her was a potent rivalry. And you would have been (had been) an excellent fucking rival. But now it was different. Now it was – whatever she wanted from you, you were going to be _so_ good at giving it. Whatever comfort she needed, you were going to give it to her; whatever problems needed fixing, for her or for anyone, you were going to fix them. 

You _knew_ Terezi, and you knew enough to know you were brought back as an instrument of justice. You intended to live up to this. You’d tried to give her the justice she wanted, once. You’d thought you were succeeding, you’d only tried to adjust for the practical realities of feeding a lusus of your size, and you hadn’t meant to fuck up. You never had.

Second chances, you thought. It’s worth succeeding now. Terezi’s breath was very soft against the exposed skin of your neck. _It is worth succeeding now_. 

The fervency of your own emotion bothered you a little; you’d gotten used to a little nagging voice in the back of your head, or several, that cropped up when you felt this strongly about something. _You’re losing your head again, Serket_ , something was saying. _Don’t get so invested. You’re about to fuck something up._

You swallowed. Even though Terezi, soft and immovably asleep and a shade warmer than you, rested against you, you shivered. 

_You’re about to fuck something up!!!!!!!!_

“No, I’m not,” you had whispered. 

She stirred, then; maybe she had been awake for a while. Opened red eyes; gave you a curious sniff. “You’re not what?” 

“Not putting up with this a second longer,” you said, shoving her off of you. “You’re crushing me, how are you so _dense_ for someone so short?” 

“It’s all the brain power,” said Terezi. “One of us has to have it.” 

Good, you still did the banter. It was good to know that moirallegiance didn’t require a full cancellation of your general personality. 

“Breakfast?” you asked, then glanced at the clock. “Well, lunch actually.” Then you reached out and took her hand, which made a soft, surprised smile (not like Terezi at all, unless it’s the one you knew as a kid, and even then–) break across her face for a moment.

You were going to be whatever she needed, you promised yourself. For as long as she needed you. For as long as you could.) 

“Searket,” says your new best friend, Teen Condescension, beside you. “You’re koinda freaking me out here. And by that I mean, cod damn, are we krilling Lord English or are we just waiting for him to find us as we sit here like dead bait?” 

“We’re going,” you say. _That’s_ embarrassing. You think you haven’t been standing there, furious, for a few seconds too long. You and Terezi had _known_ , you’d always known, it had always been mutually understood. Two people could like each other just about as well as any two people can like each other without forming some kind of soppy obsession with each other. 

“Was the other me always such a wet blanket?” you ask when you and Meenah are walking, even though you know she wasn’t. 

“She was pretty much like you at first,” shrugs Meenah. Her voice sounds a little subdued; you feel a twinge of annoyance. “Fishka was all rayght, reelly. Reel sweet. She was just trying somefin out. Naut her fault it got a little old. Everyfin gets old in the afterlife.” 

“I wouldn’t,” you say. Even though you _did,_ somehow. Another, stupider you. But still. 

Meenah doesn’t say “Are you shore?” or whatever stupid fish thing would be appropriate, and you almost resent her for that, too. There are a hundred things that _you_ would have said to an alternate self that dared to try to yell at you. You are great (gr8!) at having arguments with yourself. 

“How are you any different from me?” she would ask you, “if you’re leaving her, too?” and you wouldn’t cry like a wriggler. She could call you anything and you’d stand and face it. Once upon a time, the both of you could handle anything. Only one of you stayed that way. Only one of you can survive here, or anywhere that matters. 

“I’d stay,” she would maybe say. “Maybe that’s what she needs. Maybe she just can’t ask you for that because she knows you’re a _huge 8itch_.”

“I’m saving her, asshole,” you would say. “Her and the rest of material reality! Sometimes material reality _needs_ a huge bitch.” 

“You went out Just,” you would add. “And I’m going out Heroic.” You’d say it casually. No yelling. Stay calm, keep your voice level, the way Terezi almost always could. 

“Plus,” you would finish, and watch that hideous face break further, nauseate yourself further by making yourself watch. “Do you _actually_ think she needs us that much?” 

Your name is Vriska Serket. A universe needs you, and that has to be enough.

-

Your name is Terezi Pyrope and Earth C is… well, Earth C _is_. 

It is a pretty planet! Maybe none of the woods smell right when Jade takes you out on hikes; and maybe the light's too tasteless and the sky too bright; and maybe seeing crowds of trolls again leaves you confused, uneasy where you thought you’d be bursting with excitement. 

It’s envy, you think sometimes. When Karkat moves in with Dave at the drop of a hat, when Kanaya and Rose are perpetually smiley, and perpetually _looking_ at each other, you sometimes want to grab the last remaining two people you survived the end of the world with by the fronts of their shirts, and drag them towards you, and yell, well, yell _something_. Maybe just yell at them for not being as lonely as you. Yell at them for not missing Alternia, even though they have a million reasons not to. Even though _you_ have a million reasons not to.

Alternia was not quite dead on the meteor. Alternia was accessible in a dream bubble, in Vriska. Cotton-candy leaves and a dead planet’s wind. Now it is dead for good, and nothing is going to replace it, and nothing _should_ , but you can't stop yourself thinking of the soft sounds of the sea and the leaves, the rose-and-lime light of the moons. 

Of all people, you’ve taken to hanging out with Jade and John. Something in them feels a little bit out-of-place in the same way you are. You and John go out sometimes to the middle of the wide-open fields near the Consort Kingdom, where the wind howls above you, free and untethered. 

You just trade barbs, most of the time. It is nice to do this with him, who clearly has barbs of his own to direct at the world, whether they're justified or not. You try to explain Alternia exactly once, but the words get stuck. You want to say: _how can you hate everything that a place made of you, and miss it anyway?_

So you talk haltingly about your forest for a few minutes; then the lump in your throat becomes too much, and you stop mid-sentence. You hope John is not paying too much attention. As ever, he is not; this is the other good thing about him. 

“I kind of get it,” he says eventually. “When I lived on Earth, I was always mad at my dad for some reason, and I... hated looking at my surroundings sometimes.” He swallows. The two of you don’t tend to go in this direction. "All those same-looking houses. I sometimes had a sense that I was living somewhere that wasn’t even really real. Maybe that’s why I didn’t think about it too hard when it all blew up. But that was me being a stupid kid. If there’s anything that’s not real, it’s…” 

You’re not sure you have the heart to tell him that Alternia wasn’t ever _not_ real to you; that for the entirety of your life, and still now, that and Vriska were the most real things there were. 

John’s sentence remains unfinished. Your drive home is unusually quiet. 

Jade is harder, in a way, because she _does_ pay attention. You get the sense that she is searching for a safe, unattached new person to befriend, and the company works for a while. For both of you, maybe, even. Certainly she is evidently and brilliantly smart, and certainly you have to grin with delight the first time she gets angry at you. 

When you talk around your feelings with her (you have learned from the last brief time that talking directly about what you’re thinking is not worth the effort), you almost want her sometimes to get angry at you, try to drag it out of you the way Vriska did in some of the more tumultuous days of your moirallegiance. From the way that she looks at you sometimes, it's like she _wants_ to ask something of you but doesn’t know how.

In the end, though, you’re glad she doesn’t. Whatever it is, you don’t think you can give it to her. 

The first time you see Karkat alone in months, it’s when he’s emerging from the dim cave that he and Dave call an “apartment” to purchase groceries. It’s been one week since you tried to tell John about Alternia; one week since, on the drive back, a nagging thought had started formulating in the back of your mind. 

He seems well for someone who has probably not been exposed to the outdoors for two weeks. You give his figure a careful sniff across a shelf of unfamiliar fruits. Still being swallowed by a dark sweater, still incapable of standing out straight. But there’s red coming into his eyes; you can smell a faint, strong hint of it even from this far away. 

“It’s been a while,” he says, and there might be an accusing note in it, which you definitely do not have time for. 

“New universe!” you say cheerfully. “Much to do.” 

You get a probably-deserved eyeroll at that, and suddenly don’t want to stay here with someone who has known you a somewhat preposterous amount of time, and liked you far too much for most of it. You would have stood behind his leadership forever once. 

“That’s bullshit,” he says. “Dave and I are eating pizza rolls and acquainting ourselves with Earth C reality TV, which is deliciously awful, if you’re interested, and you’re hiding from everyone.” 

“I saw Jade last weekend. My social calendar is, I would argue, looking quite a bit more populous than yours.” 

“I see Jade at least three times a week, asshole. You didn’t invent hanging out with Jade.” He looks around the store and motions towards the checkout, as if to say, _two gods confronting each other in a Troll Kingdom grocery store is not a stellar look_. You shrug and follow him. When you’re standing outside, where mockingly familiar Alternian hives illuminated by too-bright, too-white light, he turns to you and says, “Terezi, I’m worried about you.” 

“Interesting,” you say. “Have you tried not doing that?” 

He sighs. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.” 

“Not my fault if you have bad taste.” 

“Jade thinks you’re depressed.” 

“Oh, _Jade_ thinks so.” 

(You have sometimes wondered whether to say something to Jade about the way she discusses Dave and Karkat; like they are an exclusive club she is delighted to be temporarily invited into, always negotiating boundaries of closeness with. “The amount of time I spend around them, it’s like we’re a throuple or something! But they’re so _gross,_ for two people who never kiss or hold hands – I wonder sometimes if I’m in the way too much – ?”

You wonder now whether to address the way Karkat talks about _her_ , like she’s simple and straightforward and got it all figured out. But you have to stop somewhere. It is not your job to make these losers understand each other.)

“Don’t talk about her like that!” says Karkat, like you’re still all six sweeps years old and he’s defending her honor. “Jade is really smart.” 

“I did not dispute that. She is also, however, not a licenced psychoterrorist.” 

“That’s not a profession that exists here, Terezi,” says Karkat. “It's also not a profession that existed on Alternia, I’m pretty sure. I think you just made up that word on the spot.” 

“Yes, to express the horror the Earth profession manages to contain.” 

He dignifies you with a snort, and for a moment it’s like you’re kids again, except without a lot of what was simple, and thankfully without a lot of what was unnecessarily, excessively complicated. 

“But seriously – most of us have barely seen you, and Jade says there’s obviously a million things you’re not talking about, and that’s been true for me and you for sweeps, it’s not a big deal, but this isn’t healthy, you don’t have Vriska anymore -“ 

You don’t hate him for the leaderly monologue. It is ungenerous, you think, to condemn him for the crime of being himself. But you might hate him for the way he breaks off when he says her name. 

“Karkat Vantas,” you say in a low voice, “I am not a wriggler! I do not need to be protected from the knowledge that my moirail is not present on this planet! Furthermore, I am not currently seeking a replacement!” 

You regret it, later, storming away from him like that. Anger at Karkat, too, is a relic from a different time. That might have been why you enjoyed it.

A month passes. Karkat apologizes; John fails to answer texts for a week; Jade looks tired, and in adherence to your compact with her, you don’t ask why. 

Rose and Kanaya send out wedding invitations. 

You alchemize a new jetpack. 

-

And now you are Vriska Serket, as you always have been and always will be. Your immutable self will only strengthen with time. Gain all the levels, all of them. But never change the way _she_ changed. Never stop being you. 

Lord English is enormous, and you are not afraid. You have never been more yourself. You have never been more sure of yourself. You lift the juju over your head with an army at your back, and if it’s an army you didn't gather, who will remember that part? You are in the right place, you are doing the right thing. You will come back triumphant or you will die triumphant, but each outcome’s all right. You just want to see it all happen. You want to save the world. 

There’s Terezi ghosts in the crowd, and a real one out there somewhere; in another universe, by now, whatever time means here. Maybe she has been there for a hundred sweeps. 

You lift the juju above your head, and allow yourself a moment to hope she’s happy. After all, you are winning her a universe. 

-

You are Terezi Pyrope. This concept, away from everything that made it, has never meant less. 

But now, at least, you are surrounded once more by the blackness of paradox space, and this is its own kind of comfort. After all, this is where meaning goes to die. 

Earth C was still perceptible behind you when you reached the Door; a single, solitary blue speck. You are not Vriska, and so you looked back before stepping through. But not for too long. 

There are wings at your back that you crafted yourself and possibilities unfolding in front of you, too fast and frightening to make out. Luck has never been on your side, but a different you had once claimed to make your own.

She’d found her Vriska in the end. You might, too, then. It is not impossible that she’s alive; that you’d find her; that she’d want to come back with you. It is _not_ impossible. There have been further distances! You have seen many of them. 

You are Terezi Pyrope, and always will be, whatever that means. Alone, you blast off into the ruins of paradox space. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow! wow. wow. i'm done? i'm done! 
> 
> i don't like being corny about my own writing but this is the longest writing project i have ever completed and made public, and i'm eternally grateful to anyone who commented on it, or kudos'd it, or just gave it a chance. starting this fic is one of the better decisions i have made in the span of this horrid year, one that has occasionally kept me feeling "alive" and "moderately sane." melodramatic but true, just like this chapter. 
> 
> i am not done with homestuck femslash! i have another long vrisrezi project semi-outlined and am going to try to post some shorter stuff in the interrim. if you'd like, follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/chronotopics) where i yell about homestuck girls and your occasional dirkjake
> 
> also, just for fun, here's my [writing playlist for this fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4cbNqNM0p0WyL79jl4cxLF?si=--3dTYfeQ7WkJIxV8n7mgQ). taste is not assured but it does have like ten mountain goats songs


End file.
